Every year, in the weeks leading up to World Thinking Day, our unit talks about Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the world, and ways that we can be a part of the Sisterhood of Guiding. This year, we decided to try something we had never done before: to raise money for the Canadian World Friendship Fund (CWFF).
After today (February 4th, 2013), the Canadian Mint will no longer be circulating pennies. We thought that the phase-out of the penny was a great opportunity to raise money and awareness for the Canadian World Friendship Fund in our unit!
Once we explained what the CWFF was, the girls were very enthusiastic about the idea. They each made a “penny bank” (out of re-purposed plastic cups and old, washed out vitamin bottles). Armed with a letter to families explaining what we were doing, and after covering some safety points (the same as cookie sales: only ask family and friends, and make sure you have your family’s permission), we sent out our penny collectors to rustle up some change!
The girls returned after the first week with baggies, cups, bottles and baking containers filled with pennies. At our meeting, we split into groups and got to work. Being a multi-branch unit, we divided the tasks into age-appropriate jobs: Sparks counted the pennies into piles of 10 cents each, the Brownies counted the piles and determined totals for each level, and the Guides made posters so we can graph our progress each week (we have a unit challenge to see which branch can raise the most change).
After only one week, our collection exceeded our expectations. The girls have been so enthusiastic that we have readjusted our original goal and have doubled the amount we are aiming to collect for the CWFF.
Not only are the girls learning about helping others around the world, they are covering many parts of the program, including International Guiding and math skills (to name just a few), and having a ton of fun!
We’d like to challenge other units to find creative ways this Thinking Day to raise money for the CWFF!
By guest blogger and Guider ‘Glowie’, aka Megan Gilchrist. Megan is the Contact Guider for the 7th St. Catharines Guiding (multi-branch)Unit.
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