Community service projects are wonderful, but they only help for a short time & don't address the root cause of an issue for longer impact.  The goal of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience is to teach girls to look deeper to increase the impact of their project.  A good Take Action project can have community service elements, but if they are reomved there will still be a project that offers a long term solution.

In order to develop a good Take Action Project whether it is for a journey or for a Bronze, Silver or Gold Award you must be able to recognize the difference between a community service project & a take action project.  
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Here is a downloadable PDf version of the chart if you want  a copy to use for your troop.
(If you want even more examples, there is a longer list  at the bottom of this page)
cs_vs_take_action__poster_-_with_table.pdf
File Size: 398 kb
File Type: pdf
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How can you use this chart with your girls to help them understand?
Depending on the age of your girls, you may want to use a younger girl friendly description of CS vs TA​​

Community Service Project
​Uses your time
Short term. Helps right now
You show up for something already set up by somebody else.

​Take Action Project
Uses your leadership
Helps longer term works to solve issue.
​You get other people to show up to help you with something you arranged.
Starts with an issue

A few ways to approach it

DISCUSSION
Have them brainstorm a short list of ways people might help their community. You can use the community service projects from the chart or have them suggest ones they would like to do or have done.
Then ask questions, such as ...
             How could we make what we do last longer ?
             How could it have a bigger impact or reach more people ?
             Who else could we get to help us ?
             Who could we teach to do the same thing we did ?

SKILL OR LEADERSHIP COMPARISON
This works well with older girls.
The example below was created by high school girls on the Girltopia Journey.  They were asked  to make two boards to compare the skills they would develop attending a beach cleanup (community service) VS organizing and running a monthly beach cleanup (Take Action).  You could do this exercise with any of the examples above or below.

INTERACTIVE ACTIVITY
Matching "game". 
​Have the girls write down the descriptions of CS & TA on poster paper or a whiteboard.  Put them side by side.
​
Suggested directions. Print out & cut up the "cards" of the chart below. Form even teams. Chose the number of examples you will use based on the size of your group.  Each girl takes a project description & decides which side her project belongs in, the CS group or the TA group.  (Hint for them - there will be the same number of girls in each group.). Once they figure out their correct group, have them find the one that "matches" theirs. Explain that it won't "match", but that the girls in the CS group should find the person in the TA group who makes their project bigger or uses more leadership and problem solving. Sometimes the TA project is a different way to approach the same topic.
​The list contains letters if you want to make it easier for the girls to find their "partner".  If they want more of a challenge, cut off the letters.

Downloadable, printable matching "cards" version of the list below. 
Pdf or Word format.

cs_vs_take_action_matching_cards_with_issue.pdf
File Size: 905 kb
File Type: pdf
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cs_vs_take_action_matching_cards_with_issue.docx
File Size: 32 kb
File Type: docx
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Do you need more examples ?