Melanie Butterfield, a member of the Upper Scioto Valley Girl Scout Troop 20301 recently receive the scout Silver Award.
The Silver Award is the highest award a Girl Scout Cadette can earn. It gives the girl an opportunity to demonstrate her leadership skills by organize a service project to improve her community.
Here is a description of the award and Melanie's specific projects:
As a candidate of this task she must follow steps to earn her Girl Scout Silver Award. Melanie Butterfield from the USV Troop 20301, Alger completed the 8 steps to earn her award. She first went on her Cadette Journey which means that she completed an activity book teaching her skills in leadership, giving to others, and self-discipline.
Secondly, she identified an issue that she cared about. She found many projects that could be completed in her surrounding communities or church that could qualify her for this award. She then had to decide to go solo or choose a team to work with.
She did her project alone but was assisted from time to time by Emily and Elisabeth Brown who were part of her troop and church. Step 5, she needed to pick her Take Action project; she recognized the need for an updated church directory at the church she attended. She then had to make a plan and put it into motion.
She chose to photograph, design, and gather information to create a Directory for Auglaize Bible Church. She began this project by meeting with her Scout Leader, Kim Manning, to see if she approved of the idea, she was given the okay to proceed.
She then met with the Deacon Board at ABC to see if they would approve this project. They approved and gave her the go ahead to what was going to be a black and white directory which would be fully completed by Melanie.
As she gathered information on each family took their photographs and updated any information that needed to be done, the board began to think they would rather have a colored copy that would be printed and assembled at a professional print shop. Melanie agreed to the changes and went about collecting information.
She updated the history of the church with help from the church historian, Shirley Billings, and also added pictures to this section of the directory. She added a page on the new Pastor, Ben Buzhardt, with his own history and academic background.
She also added the family’s birthdays and anniversaries to this book. In the last pages of the directory she added photos and information about many of the past events that were held at the church. She concluded the directory with an updated prayer chain for easy access for the church members.
She then made a copy on her home computer for the approval from the board. When it was presented to them with an estimate from a local print shop and the board approved, she took a disk up to get the copies made.
After all the photographs were taken, each family was called for updates on birthdays and anniversaries, the history update, the newly formatted prayer chain, hours of laying out pages for each event, creating a cover, and many hours logged during free computer classes offered at the Ada Public Library, she logged more than 63 hours (50- hours are recommended) from start to finish.
With the finished product in hand she delivered the directories to the church shut-ins homes and members who had moved into nursing homes. She passed out the others following church services to insure each family received a copy of the new directory.
After completing her project she filled out paperwork for the Girl Scout Council, showed her project to her leader to be signed off on and turned it into the Council where it was approved. She was awarded a patch, certificate, and pin given to her by her Scout Leader at a ceremony which kicked off her troops new year where she and 3 others continue their Girl Scout Careers as Seniors.
She is now looking for her new project that must be completed in the next 3 years, the Gold Award.
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