Community Service Vs Take Action
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.
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.

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)
(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 |
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
Depending on the age of your girls, you may want to use a younger girl friendly description of CS vs TA
Community Service Project
|
Take Action Project
|
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
|
Downloadable, printable matching "cards" version of the list below.
|
cs_vs_take_action_matching_cards_with_issue.pdf |

cs_vs_take_action_matching_cards_with_issue.docx |