Badges Rock!

Unfortunately I don't have a picture from this wonderful day, but...what can you do?

For the first half of this semester I was in a Nonprofit Leadership class, Volunteer Management and Program Planning. Each class session was 4 hours! long. Ridiculous I know, but it only lasted 8 weeks and it really was a wonderful class so it was worth it. Anyway, as a part of the class we had to plan an event and recruit and oversee volunteers. Every year, this class does a Girl Scout event called Badges Rock! It's an awesome program that gives Girl Scouts from the urban core of Kansas City the opportunity to earn a badge or two...unfortunately they don't have that chance very often. It also gives them the chance to see a college campus. My group was made up of four wonderful, extremely fun, kind of crazy people. The theme of the event this year was STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) knowledge...to help get the girls interested in these fields which are severly lacking in female experts. My group decided to focus on science. We had some great little experiments like making slime and creating a rainbow density column. We also had a great speaker, Mindy Walker who is a professor here at RU, come and talk to the girls to show them that women can do great things in science and that it's a lot of fun! We recruited our volunteers, mainly through our friends and groups that we're all involved in, like APO, CLC, and Greek organizations.

We had a freak snow storm the day of the event, but once the girls were able to get on campus it seemed to go smoothly. The volunteers were wonderful! And the girls all seemed to really enjoy themselves...especially the snake that Mindy brought:) They were so excited when they got their Science Discovery badge at the end of the day.

Overall, it was a total success...and we all got A's in the class!

Love and Prayers