Earning a higher award in Girl Scouts provides many opportunities for the future of girls who receive it. The Silver Award in Girl Scouts can be completed individually or as a group. While a lot of time and effort go into completing the higher awards, the impact and accomplishment is one that will last a lifetime.

Based in Sacramento, Troop 1386 decided to do a variety of community service projects for their Silver Award including painting a mural at the Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services. They partnered with Wide Open Walls 916 and artist, DIME, to complete this portion of their project.

Wide Open Walls 916 is an organization that partners with artists from around the world to create murals for the public to see throughout the Sacramento region. From August 9 until August 19, they will be bringing over 40 local, national, and international artists to the Sacramento area to transform walls and neighborhoods to celebrate the relevancy and diversity of street art.   

DIME is a member of Few and Far, an organization that assembles women to beautify the streets and who all share a commitment to creativity, education, and social justice. Their website explains that a mural is a story and each artist takes her turn in the telling. For DIME, her collaborations are painted with youth and are seen in walls all around her city and beyond, reaching an intergenerational audience.

The idea to create a mural stemmed from a troop discussion about how they could bring visibility to the issue the girls were trying to address through their Silver Award. To bring this idea to life, the girls participated in money earning activities, collecting $2000 to support the project. Once they had enough money to commission an artist they reached out to WOW to resource their breadth of artist connections. WOW provided the additional funds needed to support the commissioning of the artist.

When the actual design of the project came up, the troop got together to decide on earth tones and helping the earth and DIME came up with the illustration of the design. During the discussion with the Sacramento Food Bank, they mentioned they would love to see diversity, the idea of feeding people, and an inspirational message to the volunteers.  

Through a group effort and collaboration, Troop 1386 and their partners on the project created a beautiful, successful and impactful art mural that can be seen today at the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services.

Girl Scouts Heart of Central California would like to thank Wide Open Walls and DIME for helping Troop 1386 create a unique, lasting, and impactful Silver Award project.