Project: Girl Scout Meeting
Actual Time Taken: One Hour
Sometimes volunteering can be hard work– building houses for the homeless, picking up trash around a park, sorting heavy cases of canned goods for food banks… and sometimes it can be easy.
This weeks’ hour of volunteering was definitely of the easy variety.
I almost don’t want to count the hour of Girl Scout-ing we did as my weekly hour of volunteering. It was far too much fun. And I hang out with my Girl Scout member Hero (singular- we are a small, but mighty troop.) all the time anyway, seeing as she’s my best friend. (yes. I have a 12 year old best friend. She’s like my little sister, sans the annoying little sister stuff.)
Sister Selfie Realness
But we had a busy week here at work. (Not a good excuse, I know.) We had eight shows (like we always do…) and a four hour rehearsal for the newest dancer girl to be put into the show (also part of the job, can’t use that as an excuse..) and I was just beat. (also lame. But anyway….)
Hero came to the theater between shows on Saturday with her best friend Tenley, who was visiting from New York. Tenley doesn’t have a Girl Scout troop that she participates with, so we inducted her for the afternoon.
Hero and Tenley with her Scouting notebook and badge
First we had some pepperoni pizza for lunch. This is an important point because the one time I went to a Girl Scout meeting as a kid we were served stale, unsalted, unbuttered popcorn, and in that crunchy, tasteless moment, I decided that the Girl Scouts weren’t for me at the time.
Now that I find myself as a Girl Scout leader, I make sure we have awesome snacks.
The irony is that after we had the said pizza, we found out that our badge that we are working towards is about being fit and healthy.
Oops.
Tenley also had a bunch of Whoppers. Great nutritional-leader-of-children I am…
We flipped though our Junior Girl Scout binder after the delicious (read: unhealthy) pizza and figured out what steps we needed to take to earn Hero her badge. We picked one that required Hero and Tenley to talk to a health care professional about how to stay healthy at their age, and while we waited for a health care professional to show up, we crafted with some copper jewelry wire I had brought, making rings, bracelets, and a couple of pairs of faux glasses.
Copper glasses. The very-thin-wire variety
After we were done with our craft photo shoot, we went up to our Physical Therapists’ office. We travel our own PT for the cast and crew of the Lion King, Dionne Vernon of NeuroTour Physical Therapy. She’s amazing and I swear at times, is single-handedly keeping this show going by keeping injuries at bay.
Hero and Tenley talked to Dionne about how to stay healthy, how and why growing pains happen (did you know your bones don’t grow from the center but from either end of the bone?! I certainly didn’t!), and how important stretching and staying active is to a young, growing body such as theirs.
Health chat- check.
I swear I must have learn as much from Dionne as those girls did. I think it’s one of my favorite parts of being a Girl Scout leader- I get as much out of the meetings and badge activities as the girls do!
Learning + Volunteering = Double win.
52 Hours A Year 
