Holly Haven: A Girl Scout Silver Award Project

By Phoebe Jones and Courtney Jolly

The Silver Award

The Girl Scout Silver Award is an opportunity for Girl Scout Cadettes to show how they are leaders that are organized, determined, and dedicated to their communities. To receive the Silver Award, Girl Scouts must complete a Take Action project that will benefit their community for years to come.

Our Silver Award Project: Holly Haven

Here at Doko Farm, we completed our own Silver Award project by building a bench. This bench benefits the community because when people visit Doko Farm, they get tired and need a place to rest that's out of the sun. We completed this project in the summers of 2021 and 2022. We built this bench around a tree—using materials from a felled tree right here on the farm—near the pasture so people can observe the animals while resting.

Connections to the Community

We connected to communities around us in a multitude of ways. We connected to the food shed community by providing a place to sit—and learn about the Girl Scouts and our Silver Award project—when they come to the farm to purchase pasteurized heritage meats. We also connected to the tourist community by giving tourists a place to sit and observe the animals, as well as get out of the sun. We connected to the global community by posting our journey through completing the bench on the Doko Farm Facebook Page. Anyone in the world can view this page and learn about our Silver Award.

Skills We Gained

We learned many things while completing our Silver Award project. Before we even started working on the bench, we were able to learn ways to problem solve and troubleshoot by completing an Engineering Journey. We were able to apply this knowledge and overcome quite a few problems when building the bench, whether they be uneven ground or limited materials or faulty tools. We learned how to properly use power tools from the owners of the farm and a former building inspector who helped in the construction of the bench.

How We Lived The Girl Scout Promise And Law

The Girl Scout Promise and Law are a set of guidelines that Girl Scouts follow in order to be the best people they can.

One aspect of the Promise is that you should help people at all times. We did this by helping Amanda Jones and Joe Jones, the owners of Doko Farm, by building a place to sit for people who visit the farm, and solved this problem with limited resources. Using resources wisely is another part of the Girl Scout Promise. We did this by using wood they already had to build their new bench. We followed another part of the Girl Scout Promise—making the world a better place—by providing a place to rest for visitors at Doko Farm.

Sustainability

To learn more about sustainability we interviewed the two owners of Doko Farm, Amanda and Joe Jones, about sustainability. Sustainability is important because “we all share the same planet” (Joe Jones, an owner of Doko Farm and former Faculty Principal of Green Quad, a learning community focused on sustainability). Knowing about sustainability is important because we need to know the process of "preserving resources for future generations" (Joe Jones). There are several advantages of being sustainable, so we interviewed Amanda Jones, an owner of Doko Farm, and asked what some advantages of sustainable farming are. She said, "healthier environment, healthier livestock, healthier working conditions for the farmer, and being able to provide healthy food for our community." With our bench being sustainable we are helping save the environment, and so are the owners of Doko Farm!

Conclusion

The Silver Award is the highest-ranked award a Girl Scout Cadette can earn, and shows how responsible, determined, and dedicated to their community they are. In building this bench, we practiced sustainability by reusing parts of a felled tree from on the farm. We were able to gain many skills such as the proper use of power tools, trouble shooting, and problem solving. We also used the Girl Scout Promise and Law to guide us through this project. We made connections to communities such as the local food shed community, the tourist community, and the global internet community. This bench took a lot of hard work, but in the end, it was worth every hour of work we put into it.