Advice to Start your Gold Award Project
When I started my project, I felt overwhelmed and had no idea where to start. Looking back on my project, I have tips and advice for anyone starting their own Gold Award Project.
1. Find a Topic that You are Passionate About
You will be working on this project for a very long time. To stay motivated, you must choose something that you find joy in! Start brainstorming topics that are important to yourself and that have some aspect that needs to be addressed. Additionally, make sure that your project topic is specific enough that it feels approachable. For example, don't choose world peace but rather an issue that will lead to better communications and less strife between citizens in various countries. For my project, I was deciding between recycling, suicide awareness, and paying respect to veterans. I ultimately picked suicide awareness as this topic needed the most attention in my community.
2. Start Creating Connections
Find an organization whose mission aligns with the main topic of your project. Before you submit your project proposal, you will need to figure out many details about your project. That is why emailing an organization related to your topic will help guide you in the right direction when filling out your project proposal on GoGold. You will also have to find a professional to serve as your project advisor, so connecting with someone early could help you throughout your entire project. Learn to be very comfortable writing emails, as it is a communication device that you must utilize to accomplish your Gold Award Project. I set up zoom meetings after contacting people about my project and went into more depth about my project and how we could partner on my Gold Award Project. To the right, you will see a picture of my Principal, Pete Scully, who connected me to the Ohio PTA so that I could write an article for them and share my infographics. Making connections with people will help get your project on its feet.
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3. Start Early and Work on Your Project Often
If I had started over, the biggest thing I would do differently would be in my timing. I started planning out my project in late May 2020. I submitted my project in July, and after a round of revisions, it was approved in late August 2020. I had anticipated more time over the summer of 2020 to start working on my project but was stuck waiting for approval. In hindsight, if I had started thinking through the aspects of my project in January of 2020 and submitted it over spring break in March 2020, I probably would have had it approved by June 2020. Working on my Gold Award Project alongside schoolwork and extracurriculars was, at times, overwhelming. I combated this stress efficiently using my time and setting small manageable goals throughout the week to progress my project. I took my computer everywhere, and whenever I had downtime, I read emails, researched, and communicated with organizations to make strides towards completing my Gold Award Project.
4. Document Your Project
Make sure you take lots of photos to document your project. That has been my favorite part of my project because it allows me to look back and see all of my progress! Save and organize all of your emails as you might want to include them in your final report. If you take photos with/of another person, you must fill out a photography release form, which you can find on the Girl Scout website. It can really help show the impact of your project, and from an outsider's perspective, it illustrates the hard work that you have put into your Gold Award Project. Keeping all of your documents and photos organized will make submitting them much easier in the long run. Make sure to keep receipts of anything you buy so that you can log your expenses in your final project.
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5. Keep Track of Your Hours
Makes sure to log every hour that you put into your project. I created a time log in the Notes app on my phone and found it easy to add or reference my log quickly. I suggest that in your time log, you record the date, the time spent on your project, and a detailed description of what you did. This will make it clear where you spent your time, and when you submit your final report, you will need to enter all of this information in GoGold. Keep track of important dates on your time log such as when you submit your project proposal, when your project gets approved, and any other milestones along the way. For example, a date that stands out in my project is when I installed my first mural at the Worthington Recreation Center. It was such a culminating moment for me to see my mural that I spent hours painting in my living room on display in my community center.
6. Learn to Overcome Failures
Throughout your Gold Award Project, you will encounter dead ends. Whether it is getting silence when you email a person or an organization unwilling to work with you, there will be challenges. While you may find solutions for some, other problems will never work out the way you want them to. For example, with my project I contacted Apple in hopes of getting the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline programmed into the emergency phone pad of all iPhones. I contacted multiple people at Apple with little to no response. Learning that sometimes you will fail is hard, but overall a valuable life lesson.