HELP HER
BL ✿✿M
BL ✿✿M
Our idea:
We are members of Troop 3700 located in Plainview, New York. At our age in Girls Scouts, we can earn the Silver Award. The Girl Scout Silver Award (the highest award a Girl Scout Cadette can earn) gives you the chance to show that you are a leader who is determined, and dedicated to improving your community. For our Silver Award Project of 2024, we needed to find a problem that is going on in our community, find a solution and make sure that it is sustainable. We realized that many girls in our town have started to get their periods at a much younger age, like 4th and 5th grade. In our district, this has become more of a problem due to our elementary buildings being K-4th grade. As a result, elementary schools teachers and administration are not typically prepared to help support these young girls though this stage, especially male teachers. We would like to raise awareness for this problem and the impact it has on a girl's mental health. In the complete opposite of our district’s No Place For Hate initiative, we have witnessed bullying by the use of hateful words and actions by other students towards the girls getting periods earlier while teachers look the other way due to the lack of understanding. This has been causing insecurity and horrible habits from these girls.
Our plan:
In order to help solve this issue and normalize periods, we have partnered with our school board to create a program educating the 4th grade teachers and elementary school administration in how they can help. We have spoken to members of our local medical community to obtain ideas and medical advice on why this might be happening at a younger age than previous generations. In addition, we have spoken to a few students that we know have been affected by bullying due to an early menstruation.
To help promote a positive experience for these students, we would like to make “Period Packs” for the girls as a little gift of hope and to know that they are not alone. We hope they will be stored in the nurse's office for girls to have full access throughout the day to the materials they need, just in case they are not prepared when situations happen at school.
Our plan is to have these packs include:
Teen sized pads
New underwear
Flushable wipes
A ziplock bag to store dirty items
An inspirational sticker for support
And an allergy friendly candy, because sugar makes everything better
Our time frame:
We would like to collect all of our donations by 11/1/24 for the first initial round of packages . Our hope is by the end of this school year, the teachers and nurses in the elementary settings of our district can be a little more educated and prepared for the incoming students and the girls will have all of the support they need to get through the school year or even just the day with no extra stress.
We hope that this idea can go a very long distance as we are sure it is not just a Plainview - Old Bethpage School District issue. Our belief is that after educating many elementary school staff on the present issues, we can create a safer and more welcoming environment for the future grades and continue efforts to always make the school a better place.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to change many young women's lives in our community.
If you have any questions, please contact us at helpherbloom@gmail.com.