Submitted by Emily Sage
Northern & Northeastern CO
Loveland
Hi! We are Troop 71020. We are a Girl Scout Junior troop. We are going to share with you how we earned our Bronze Award, and what we learned along the way.
When it came to our Bronze Award, we thought of animals and said “what if they’re hungry?” We brainstormed as a troop and met with community organizations, and finally found the perfect idea: a pet food drive! A pet food drive would help decrease the number of pets that are starving. We also wanted to help people that couldn’t afford pet food, so we found a local charity called House of Neighborly Service that provides food to those in need, including pet food. We organized a pet food drive across our community; put collection boxes in local stores, schools, and churches; and advertised our drive and the need for pet food. Our drive lasted for three weeks and we collected 1,489 pounds of pet food! We used money earned from the Fall Product Program to purchase bins to help store all of the new pet food. House of Neighborly Service was very thankful for our donation.
While working on our Bronze Award, we faced a couple problems, such as some stores weren’t willing to sponsor our project. It was also hard to figure out how to help the whole community with just ten girls and meeting just one time a month. To solve these problems, we split up and each individually found a location to host our food drive boxes and we expanded our options to include churches, schools, and workplaces, rather than just retail stores. Of course, if we did this again, we would change a few things, like having more time to find locations to host our food drive.
Pets around the world still need food, and you can donate pet food to a local food pantry or animal shelter whenever you can. One person can make a difference by making an action or donation in their community or around the world.
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