Service Projects

Tree Lighting Ceremony

In 1995, the City of Gahanna and the Gahanna Historical Society approached the Rocky Fork Service Unit to take over the tree lighting ceremony. The Gahanna Historical Society had traditionally been the group to decorate the tree but it was getting harder for them to participate in that activity. Since 1995, troops have taken turns preparing ornaments for the tree, caroling the night of the lighting and providing/serving refreshments after the ceremony.

The tree is located in Discovery Park, off Route 62 in Gahanna and typically is lit during an evening ceremony sometime the first weekend in December. It is a great opportunity for the public to have an opportunity to interact with Girl Scouts in our area.

 

Food Baskets

Providing baskets of non-perishable foods has been a long standing service project for the troops in the Rocky Fork Service Unit. When this project started, it was held around Easter but recently it has been changed to Valentine’s Day so we don’t interfere with the county-wide Operation Feed collection. The area elementary schools allow Girl Scouts to distribute notices asking for non-perishable foods. Collection boxes are placed in each school by school organizers. Troops provide a variety of activities to help with the collection--some help the school organizers by decorating boxes or carrying food to vehicles, others prepare cards for the families, some come and sort the food into categories and others actually load the boxes for the families. Generally we provide food for about 30 families in the Gahanna and New Albany area.

 

Friendship Park

Monthly, Friendship Park in Gahanna, is cleaned by Girl Scout troops. School organizers sign up for a month at the start of the school year. It a great activity to help troops with their bridging service project activity since all of the troops from an elementary school may clean the park on the same day. This does not take a lot of time but it makes the park look a lot better when it is cleaned up. The Parks and Recreation Department provides bags for the clean up and will haul away any filled bags or other trash items.