Girl Scouts Garage Sale for a Great Cause

I haven't posted an update about all that has happened since I won the $5,000 award from Pantene to add educational components about nature to a local playground. Well, I've spent a lot of time speaking with some members of the parks department and have been working to get a large all-inclusive (aka handicap accessible) wooden fort-like playground built on some undeveloped property that the town will be developing soon. I've attended several public hearings before the Parks, Arts, and Library Services board as well as Town Council to promote my idea and explain the reasons why our children need an exceptional park to help draw them outside, away from the television and video games. I'm excited to say that the final approvals have been granted for the concept drawings for the playground. Now I'm working on getting the community involved to help contribute time and money to help make the playground something really exceptional.

One of the ladies I've spoken with is the leader of a group of Daisy Girl Scouts. They are mostly 6 year olds and they want to do something to help contribute to the playground. I met with the girls last weekend at their first meeting of the year and talked to them about the efforts that have gone into getting the park to where it is and what we need to do next. I already knew that they would be learning about seeds and growing plants this year so I talked to them about the literal planting of seeds but also how we can plant seeds with our actions. We talked about how the seeds have been planted for the playground but now we need others to help water it to help it grow into something beautiful that we can all enjoy.

They decided to have a garage sale and donate all of the money to the playground. I worked with them to help get people in the community to donate items to be sold at the garage sale and made several trips around town picking up items for them.

The garage sale took place this morning and we all went over to show our support (and shop!). Nicholas' favorite part was the lemonade and donut stand. He was proud to do his part to contribute to the fundraiser by eating as much as he could.





Nicholas was also proud that he had gone through his toys and chosen some items to donate to help raise money for the playground. However, I did get in a little bit of trouble with him when he noticed a few more of his toys for sale at the garage sale that I had thrown in on my own. Oopsie! I hadn't thought about him catching me like this :)

I'm so proud of these little girls and what they did to get the fundraising piece of the project rolling. They have started us off with the first donation of $170. Way to go, girls!