The girls in Girl Scout Troop 1606 worked on the Hauppauge Public Library mural project as part of a GS Journey called The Brownie Quest. A GS Journey is a group of skill badges grouped to teach a concept as opposed to just a single skill. In this ‘journey’ they earned the 3 keys to leadership badges and the lock badge for completing a Take Action project using the keys.
Last year we found out that the Library would be moving to a new building in the Spring. The Library has been the groups meeting place since they first met as a troop three years ago. Our troop is made up of girls from two Hauppauge schools and two grade levels, so the library was the perfect place to bring them all together. Because of this they have grown to realize that a library provides many things to a community besides books and have happily contributed to many library efforts. The girls have donated Halloween candy when the Library collected for our military and donated canned goods into the Library’s drop off bins. We even organized a Girl Scout Book Swap at the Library and donated over 50 books at the end of the event!
The troop made many memories at 601 Vets Hwy and wanted to share with the Hauppauge community about the move to a new, bigger location. Once the girls decided that this was what they wanted to work on they needed a project idea.
“What skills do we have – as individuals, as a troop, in our families, in our community?” The girls started to learn about being ‘project managers’ and by looking beyond just your individual skills we have a much greater set of skills at our disposal. Just in our troop families alone we have Teachers, EMTs, Artists and Designers, Builders, Medical Professionals, Law Enforcement Officers, Fire Fighters, Photographers, Travelers, and Volunteers.
“What do we love doing?” This is a troop of naturally creative girls who love to tell stories, draw and paint, write and read, dance and sing and build. We reached out to a family member who is a visual artist and she suggested a mural. The girls were on board and started brainstorming! Cat Ferraz (our artist) made them a list of questions to help start. The troop explored, sketched and wrote about what their dream library would include, how they felt about books and things they loved to see – lots of rainbows were discussed!
We spoke to the Librarians in the childrens department to see if they might be interested in working on a project with the troop. They put us in contact with the Library Director, who invited the troop to a Library Board meeting to discuss the idea! The girls were excited, and honestly a little surprised, that a group of “adults” were willing to hear their idea. They worked with Cat to incorporate all their ideas into one mural mockup that they would present together. The board meeting turned out to be one of the most beneficial parts of the process with the girls gaining the confidence they needed to work on the other steps of the project.
Once the library was “on board” the troop tackled – “What resources do we have/need?” They would pay for any materials they needed by selling GS Cookies. The girls set their goal at 1,000 boxes together and went to work! They sold to family and friends, made a ‘commercial’ to share on social media, had a booth sale and walked around their neighborhoods on the weekends. Not sure how much paint we would be able to pay for with our cookie money we wrote a note asking for paint donations and posted to our local “mom groups”. The response was amazing, our community showed the troop that they also valued their project!
Meanwhile, the timeline for the mural started to form. As Cat prepared to start painting, the girls worked on smaller tasks individually or in smaller groups to get everything checked off the list. In addition to painting the mural that the troop had envisioned, the library lent us a projector so Cat could add the girls individual sketches to the piece (in their own artistic styles). Some of the girls worked to borrow supplies like tarps, rollers, brushes and a ladder while others met at Home Depot to get the items left on the list. Some of the girls helped get the donated paint to the library while others coordinated to deliver snacks to Cat and check on the progress.
As the mural (and library construction) was almost complete the troop was given an exclusive tour of the work and we realized there would be a lot of extra paint at the end of the project. To continue the generosity of the Hauppauge community and not create waste the troop arranged to donate the paint to Splashes of Hope – a local non-profit that paints murals for hospitals and VA facilities.
Written by Carolina – Troop 1606 leader