For their Bronze Award project, Troop 15014 from Aspen made care packages for local animal shelter.
For part of their project, the girls served a short term need of some lonely dogs and cats at the Aspen Shelter by spending the afternoon socializing with them. First they socialized with the dogs, pet them, and played with them.
It was really special to see how excited the girls and the dogs both were and how they connected with each other and enjoyed it so much!
For the other part of their project, the girls purchased tons of supplies for care packages for the dogs, cats, and even guinea pigs and rabbits that are waiting to be adopted at Colorado Animal Rescue. After discussing their ideas, they decided that they really wanted to give the animals things that they would enjoy, not necessarily things targeted for their potential new owners like leashes and bowls like so many people often do. So the girls chose tons of different kinds of treats, toys specific for their size, as well as beds and blankets because that would bring the animals comfort. The girls even went onto the website and made name tags for each of the animals care packages who are up for adoption and personalize each care package for them!
They chose this project because they have been doing a lot of community service for veterans, homeless, and the senior center and thought it was the animals turn. They love and have a passion for animals and were also recently inspired by their overnight Girl Scout trip to the Cheyenne Mountain zoo.
The girls made 10 personalized care packages for each of the dogs, 10 personalized care packages for each of the cats, two for the guinea pigs and two for the rabbits that are up for adoption.
The packages were delivered to the animal shelter in person and the employees were so grateful, and the animals were so so happy. The dogs got to come out and open up their care package and get a treat from it. And then we went into the cat room and gave each of the cats their care packages, toys and treats. It was really sweet to see how personal of an experience it was instead of just dropping off the care packages in bulk and having them distributed anonymously to the animals.
A favorite part of the project was the teamwork of putting together the care packages. This Take Action project was for the Think Like A Programmer journey. In order to integrate the project into the journey the girls created algorithms for each of the care packages. They practiced math by counting up the treats, dividing them by the number of animals, and even weighing the treats out on digital skills to make equal portions.
They learned how to order supplies, they learned to work together as a team to put together the packages, and they learned how to use their coding skills, combined with math to make sure that the care packages were of equal value for each animal.
The other favorite part was of course, socializing with animals!