Brownies - Give Back Badge

We worked with our girls on the Brownie's "Give Back" badge (patch).

Prior to our meeting, the girls looked up companies that give back (money, product, service, etc).  They brought their findings to our meeting and shared with the others.  We (leaders) also looked into companies that the girls would know and talked about them (it's easy to find:  search "companies that give back").  The girls also brought up our visit to the local food pantry (they give (food) back to people who can not afford to buy their own) and Feed My Starving Children (giving food to various people/places all around the world).

We discussed a giving goal.  How much money we would like to give back to help others.  We also set our cookie selling goal at the same time.  We had the girls do the math, figuring out how much we want to give and how many cookies we would have to sell in order to reach that goal.  Our girls chose two places to give money.   At this time, we also had the girls decide on something fun for themselves to do (a field trip).  This was also factored in to our cookie goal.

We practiced what to say to our customers when selling our cookies.  We wanted our customers to know exactly how the cookie money will be spent.  Knowing that the money they are spending on cookies is going to help (sick children, an animal shelter, homeless people, a women's shelter, senior citizens, etc.) makes the customer feel like they are helping, too.  (and might help boost sales :)  )

We also made sure that the girls know about the program where people can donate money instead of purchasing boxes of cookies (located on the Girl Scout Cookie Order Form).  This is great for people who have restricted diets, are on a diet or just don't need to buy any more cookies, but would love to help.

Finally, we had the girls write "Thank You" letters thanking their customers for purchasing cookies from them and telling them how we are spending the money we earned from sales.  Some girls drew pictures of cookies (we had them do this in pencil).  To make it more personal, we had the girls write "Dear ___________" We made photo copies for the girls and they wrote in the person's name and placed a letter in with the customer's cookie order.