Bronze Award Spotlight: Helping Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge
When Girl Scouts team up to make a difference, anything is possible! One thing that unites Girl Scouts is their desire to help others around them, including our four-legged and feathered friends. The Girl Scout Juniors of Troop 223 in Virginia Beach are no exception and they earned the Girl Scout Bronze Award by taking action to help local wildlife.
GSCCC volunteer and troop leader Kacey Farrell said that the Girl Scouts of Troop 223 had no challenge finding a project to meet their interests. “We have done a lot of work over the years with animal badges and community projects, so this is a meaningful topic for them,” Kacey shared. “We reached out to Ellen Abney with Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge and asked her if she would meet our girls and go over the current needs of the organization. We had a wonderful meeting with Ellen, where they got to meet and name her youngest raccoon baby (they named him Churro). She gave the girls so much information about Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge, what they do, how they help our local wildlife, and what specifically they needed help with.”
After learning about what the rescue does, and the needs of the organization, Troop 223 chose to support Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge with two new animal habitats. The Girl Scouts took action to support their project by hosting a community yard sale.
“We were hoping to raise enough money to build two large outdoor enclosures for Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge, with any remaining money raised going to purchasing a few items from the refuge’s Amazon wish list. For two days, the girls worked so incredibly hard, on probably the hottest days of the entire summer, and raised more than enough! We purchased the two enclosure kits and had over $400 remaining to buy wish list items.”
After securing the funds needed to purchase materials, the troop planned an overnight meeting and used their teamwork to build both animal enclosures together. In addition to building the two enclosures, the girls made educational posters, flyers, and coloring sheets for Ellen to use with her outreach efforts.
Girl Scout Junior Piper is proud of her troop’s accomplishments. “I learned that it can be really fun to be helpful and support people who do good things,” she said. “Evelyn’s Wildlife Refuge takes care of animals who are in trouble and they sacrifice their money and time to help. My favorite part was building the enclosures. I got to use tools and put them together!”
Congratulations, Troop 233!
