Girl Scouts from Troop 2981 presented their Silver Award Project Entitled “Special Identification for Special Needs” at SEPTA Meeting.
On Monday night three Girl Scouts from Troop 2981 presented their Silver Award Project at the SEPTA Meeting. Through this project, the girls will supply families in New Rochelle with Special ID Bracelets for children with Special Needs. They received a warm welcome and response from the parents, teachers, faculty and staff in attendance. New Rochelle High School Principal Reginald Richardson spoke with the girls after their presentation and offered his assistance with the project.
The disappearance and subsequent death of Avonte Oquendo in the Fall of 2013 touched three local Girl Scouts who were beginning work on their Silver Award project. After learning the details of Avonte’s avoidable disappearance and of Senator Chuck Schumer’s idea for tracking bracelets, they wanted to help. Lily Wilk, Anaie Madrid and Caoilinn McCaffrey started a campaign to raise funds to provide special ID bracelets for children with special needs at no cost to families in New Rochelle.
For the three Albert Lenard Middle School seniors, now New Rochelle High School Freshmen, the Special ID Bracelets is a personal cause. One of their troop members’ sisters is challenged with Autism and already wears an ID bracelet. They thought about what they could do to help other families in the area avoid what happened to the Oquendo family. This became the focus for their Silver Award Project.
Having been Girl Scouts for several years, these young ladies have participated in many public service activities to help the New Rochelle community. They presented Public Service Announcements on WVOX radio to promote the National Ocean Conservancy’s yearly International Costal Clean-up, to fight bullying and to encourage leadership. They participated in annual beach clean-ups at Hudson Park several times and helped the Hope Food Pantry by holding cereal drives.
The Silver Award is the second highest award in Girl Scouts and is open to middle school students. The Gold Award represents the highest achievement in Girl Scouting and is open only to girls in high school. Working towards the Girl Scout Silver Award gives the troop members the chance to show leadership, organization, determination and a dedication to improving their community. All the while gaining the important skills necessary to make a difference in the world.
If you wish to learn more about the Silver Award please use the link below.
https://www.girlscouts.org/program/highest_awards/silver_award.asp
The goal of the girl’s project is to provide identification bracelets for the special needs students in The City of New Rochelle School District who are language locked. The girls wanted to be able to provide the identification bracelets free of charge to the families from the district who wish to place an order.
With that in mind, the girls held several fund raisers as they continued with their planning. They contacted Elizabeth McDermott from Road ID, a company that specializes in small portable IDs for runners and bicyclists, and is the company that made the bracelet their troop member’s sister wears. Ms. McDermott was very helpful and encouraging with the project.
Go check them out!
http://www.roadid.com/
From here, the girls proceeded on their journey towards the achievement of the Girl Scout Silver Award. There are several steps to follow in order to achieve this goal: First they needed to identify an issue they cared about. Next was to plan the project, develop a budget, and create the Forms for Families to order bracelets. Because of the diverse community, forms were also translated it into Spanish by the girls.
To communicate their initial idea and get approvals, they had a meeting with Mrs. Yvette Goorevitch, Director of Special Education for the New Rochelle School District. Next, they spoke with President of Autism Speaks Liz Feld, and sent e-mails to The Mayor of New Rochelle Noam Bramson and New York State Senator Charles Schumer just to mention a few.
They then developed a communication network using social media. They created a Facebook page and Twitter page to inform as many people as possible. Finally, to help with their fund raising they started an Indiegogo campaign page to raise enough money to supply identification bracelets at no charge for the families of SEPTA and The New Rochelle School District.
You can follow them on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Special-Identification-for-Special-Needs/770904432955717?fref=nf
You can follow them on Twitter @specialidsa
You can contact them at troop2981sa@gmail.com
The fund raising goal is $800.00, of which they have already raised $750 to date and expect to exceed the target amount which will allow them to order more bracelets in the future. One of the requirements for the Silver Award Project is that a project needs to be sustainable after they have finished their initial efforts. A way to meet that requirement will be for the District Special Education Office and SEPTA to continue the distribution of the Special ID Bracelets in future years using the remaining funds. The Girls and the children could still use your help!
To donate to help them reach their fund raising goal please check out their Indiegogo page:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/special-identification-for-special-needs/x/8458864