TIGblogs - Girl Scout Troop #26

Troop 26
Edmond Oklahoma

Silver Award Project

Foster Family Appreciation Dinner
5-11-2010

We chose this project to show community appreciation to families that take in children during times of great need. It is our wish that others in the community will do the same. May is Foster Family Awareness Month which was ideal to showcase our love and appreciation for the families that take in the children under their wings and love. We worked as a team to honor them at a banquet our mission statement or goal was to Reach out to Foster families to help them get to know others in similar situations and feel a sense of community and not so alone. To be able to help each other by sharing resources and enable experienced foster parents to mentor new parents. Hopefully this will spread to more families willing to foster children in need.

The banquet was at Memorial Road Church of Christ. We worked with Christian services of Oklahoma that invited the Foster Parents and children. We prepared a dinner for 25 adults and 20 children. We began to brain storm on how to fund this project and found we have the ability to go out to the community and ask for donations. Madeline Decker was able to get Earl’s Bar B Que to donate all the meat, buns, sauce and plates and utensils which was amazing. We were able to get other merchants to donate so we could host a wonderful banquet.

We asked Mandy Hooper and Memorial Singers to sing a beautiful song entitled The Prayer of the Children. We had prayer before dinner which consisted of the bar B Que and many side dishes prepared by our families.

We had Centers for the children to entertain them so the parents could relax and enjoy themselves with other families in the same situation. We had more fun than the children. The centers: Face Painting (Try to painting moving faces) it was hilarious, Grant and Jordan were precious, Duck Pond (what a hit) sweet Maria adored the water and tried to capture the Ducks we all were mesmerized by how much fun a little water and some rubber ducks can be. Musical chairs turned into improvised dance.

May is officially Foster Parent Awareness month but we can and should appreciate these wonderful families year round and more families should get involved and we want to spread the word.

We learned that from the wonderful food and fellowship to the beautiful song the families left knowing they are loved and appreciated and needed.

What we got out of this is hard to put into words first of all the feeling of great accomplishment and the love of children of all ages and their many different challenges. We all took some hope home with us and pride that we were able to meet the wonderful parents and children and give them a night to remember. We surprised ourselves and our leaders by how much support we got from the community by just asking. We all had to step up and get out of our comfort box for example impromptu public speaking and making friends with complete strangers both older and much younger. This helped all of us learn to fundraise, organize as well as be creative and imaginative. This was a project that started out as a means to appreciate what foster families do for our community and ended up giving us a deeper understanding of what a family truly means.

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