Food Bank Visit

This week we visited the Caledonia and District Food Bank as part of the Take Action program area. 

We met at the Church as usual and then walked to the Food Bank, where we were met by Dorette and Anne.

First we learned a bit about the services provided by the Food Bank and how it operates. They are open for service every Friday and people can access food, hygiene supplies, clothing, and find out about other community resources.

When a person arrives at the Food Bank, they take a form and a number. The form asks for some basic information (number of people in the family, male/female, ages of children) and then has a section where people can circle the items that they need. Another section at the bottom has other items that they can request. They put their number on the form, hand it in and wait to be called. While they are waiting, they can visit 'Linda's Closet'. Linda's Closet is a clothing closet that has all sorts of different items, including winter clothing and prom dresses. They also run a Backpack program in the fall so that children have the supplies they need to go back to school.

If there are school-age children in the family, each child receives a supply of snacks for school, which could include drinking boxes, yogurt, pudding cups, cheese strings, granola bars, apples, gold fish crackers, and/or individual hot chocolate packets. For infants, items such as formula, food, cereal and diapers are available. The Food Bank also runs a Christmas Hamper program where families receive a turkey, a food basket, fresh veggies (potatoes, carrots and onions), toiletries, hats and mitts, and a gift for each member of the family.

Some of the girls had brought donations, so we visited the scale and weighed our donations (25 pounds). Donation amounts are recorded along with the name of the group or individual donor. 

During our visit, we were able to help out with two tasks.

One area has been set aside for breaking down larger packages into smaller amounts - such as flour, sugar, rice, powdered milk, and pet food. The girls worked on dividing up large bags of dog food into smaller bags. They had to scoop food, trying to get as little as possible on the ground, and fill the bags with approximately the same amount.

The second task was to assemble toiletries bags for the Christmas Hampers. The girls used sheets with the ages and sexes of family members to make up packages for various families. When the sheet was given to the group, they had to record the family's number on the bag, then add items according to the age/sex of each family member. Each family received a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap and a tube of toothpaste, then each person received a toothbrush and teens and adults received deodorant and razors.

At the end of the visit, we thanked Dorette and Anne and walked back to the Church for pick-up.

Girls First - Diverse Connections

Happy New Year! We started 2018 off with a meeting testing activities for the Girls First

program! The theme for the evening was "Diverse Connections". As we are asked to keep the details of the test activities confidential, I can't share exactly what we did - but here is an overview of how the evening went:

As the Guides arrived, each Patrol was asked to make a list of things they like for use in one of the later activities. They took attendance and collected dues before our usual opening.

In our first activity, the girls were asked to move to different places in the room based on how much they liked or disliked an item (i.e. YouTube, Broccoli, Math, Stranger Things). This activity went fairly well and the girls commented that they had learned things they didn't know about each other. 

Next, we did an activity that was very similar to one from we did last year as part of the NSP: Action on Poverty. Girls were given a coloured card and had to move according to the instructions given with various statements about socio-economic factors. This activity went fairly well, with some interesting comments about how the girls felt in the different positions. 

Although these activities involved some movement, the girls were getting restless so we paused here for a game break and played Squirt.

For the next activity, the girls were divided up into small groups and had to find something they all had in common and something they all felt differently about. This was repeated with the groups getting progressively larger. The first round of this activity went well, but later rounds were 'boring' (doing the same thing) or 'frustrating' (too many people to find things in common and something that makes each of them unique). The girls did comment that it's good for people to think differently and like/dislike different things as it would be pretty boring if we all thought/felt the same way.

Our final activity was making up skits - which most of our girls enjoy. Before starting, we brainstormed a list of situations where people could be teased or excluded. Each Patrol had to pick one of the scenarios make up a skit showing the problem and a skit showing how they could resolve the problem. Overall these were well done and stayed on topic. 

We ended by evaluating the activities and the discussions we had throughout the evening. The results were mixed and although we didn't run into any major problems, the overall feeling was that these weren't 'fun' activities - the phrase 'school-like' was used by some. Our feedback has been submitted and will be looked at by the Girls First Team as the new program is created!

To keep up with what is happening, follow the Girls First Page!

Hunger Awareness

As our schedule for May is pretty full, we recognized the 4th Girl Guides of Canada Make A Difference Day a bit early. May
28th is World Hunger Day, so we had an evening about hunger awareness.

What is hunger? Hunger is a condition that results from not getting enough food and nutrients to live a healthy, active life. When we think of hunger, we often thing of the feeling we get when we haven't eaten for a while. We all know this feeling, but people who suffer from chronic hunger cannot satisfy this feeling by just having a meal or snack. People in this situation may not know when they will be able to eat again.

According to the World  Food Programme, chronic hunger affects more than 795 million people - that's 1 in 9 people - around the world. Although we might think of developing countries when we think of hunger, according to Food Banks Canada, about 13 percent - or slightly more than 1 in 10 people - in Canada struggle with food insecurity and lack access to enough safe, good-quality and nutritious food. Hunger and poverty also affect children more than adults. In 2015, 1 in 5 children in Canada were living in poverty.

As usual we started with 30 minutes of Patrol Time, working on the Canada 150 Challenge.

• Daffodil - Worked on Canadian-themed puzzles and games (wordsearches, fill-ins, mazes, sudoku)
• Trillium - Planned to start off by learning about Inuit Culture and making a quiliq, but ran out of time so learned about the Arms of Canada and began design their own Coats of Arms
• Pansy -Worked on Canadian-themed puzzles and games (wordsearches, fill-ins, mazes, sudoku)
• Rose - Started off with a game of hockey, followed by other games using newspaper

After cleaning up, we had our usual opening, followed by an active game. 

 

Our first activity was to create a Hunger Tree to explore our thoughts about hunger. We drew a large tree on paper and stuck it up on the back of a door, then added our thoughts in different colours. We used blue marker to add thoughts about why we need food, red marker to add thoughts about how else food is important in our lives, and green marker to add thoughts on what it feels like to be hungry. 

 

We then did an activity to learn about Buying Power and how it relates to hunger. Each Patrol was asked to come up with a menu to feed 4 people for one day. They were then given a budget and a variety of grocery store flyers to create a shopping list for the week, including everything needed to prepare their planned meals.One group was given a budget of $24, another $75, and a third an unlimited amount. The fourth group was given a budget of $100, but had to shop from the list of food prices in Northern/Remote communities. Two of the groups completed the activities successfully (albeit over-budget), while the other two stayed under-budget but hadn't taken quantities into consideration in their planning.

The final activity was a game called Obstacles to Access  One player is It (Hunger) and she tries to tag other players. When she tags someone, they become an obstacle to accessing food, for example:

• Not having enough money to buy food
• Lack of transportation to get food
• Not being able to grow food
• Not having a place to keep or store food
• Homelessness
• Unemployment
• Illness

When the game ends, discuss how it is not always just one thing that causes a person or family to experience hunger, but often the build up of several different factors.

 

We ended the meeting with reminders for next week (Great Canadian Shoreline Clean-Up) and Taps.

 

Links:

• World Hunger Day Instant Meeting (GGC) 
• National Service Project: Action on Poverty (GGC)
• Northern Food Prices Sheet 

Food Bank Visit (NSP: Action on Poverty)

This week we visited the Caledonia & District Food Bank as part of the National Service Project: Acton on Poverty.

We met at the Church as usual and then walked to the Food Bank, where we were met by Dorette and Anne.

First we learned a bit about the services provided by the Food Bank and how it operates. They are open for service every Friday and people can access food, hygiene supplies, clothing, and find out about other community resources.

When a person arrives at the Food Bank, they take a form and a number. The form asks for some basic information (number of people in the family, male/female, ages of children) and then has a section where people can circle 12 items that they need. Another section at the bottom has other items that they can request. They put their number on the form, hand it in and wait to be called. While they are waiting, they can visit 'Linda's Closet'. Linda's Closet is a clothing closet that has all sorts of different items, including winter clothing and prom dresses. They also run a Backpack program in the fall so that children have the supplies they need to go back to school.

If there are school-age children in the family, each child receives a supply of snacks for school, which could include drinking boxes, yogurt, pudding cups, cheese strings, granola bars, apples, gold fish crackers, and/or individual hot chocolate packets. For infants, items such as formula, food, cereal and diapers are available.Each family receives the items they've requested and may also receive items from the "Goodie Shelf". These are extra items such as cookies, Sidekicks, ketchup and salad dressing. (This was an eye opener for the girls!) The Food Bank also runs a Christmas Hamper program where families receive a turkey, a food basket, fresh veggies (potatoes, carrots and onions), toiletries, hats and mitts, and a gift for each member of the family.

During our visit, we were able to help out with two tasks.

One area has been set aside for breaking down larger packages into smaller amounts - such as flour, sugar, rice, powdered milk, pet food and teabags. The girls worked on dividing up boxes of tea bags. They had to count check for the best before date on the package to make sure they were fresh, then count out 12 tea bags, put them in a bag and label the bag with 'Tea' and the best before date.


The second task was to assemble toiletries bags for the Christmas Hampers. The girls used sheets with the ages and sexes of family members to make up packages for various families. When the sheet was given to the group, they had to record the family's number on the bag, then add items according to the age/sex of each family member. Each family received a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap and a tube of toothpaste, then each person received a toothbrush and teens and adults received deodorant and razors.


At the end of the visit, the donations we had brought were weighed and we found out that we had donated 100.5lbs! We then thanked Dorette and Anne and walked back to the Church for pick-up.

International Day of the Girl 2016

Tonight we celebrated the 5th Annual International Day of the Girl!

In honour of this special day, Girl Guides of Canada produced an Instant Meeting focusing on Girls and Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) that had lots of interesting activities. As our unit regularly runs STEM-related activities, we decided to work on the WAGGGS #TeamGirl Challenge instead.

Download the GGC Instant Meeting
Download the WAGGGS #TeamGirl Challenge

As the girls arrived, they played a tag game, after which we practiced forming a Horseshoe. One of the Guides led a game of Hot Dog Tag before we started our evening's program.

The #TeamGirl Challenge is divided into three parts: Team Discover, Team Build and Team Action. We completed Team Discover and Team Build, and began work on the Team Action section.

Team Discover
To begin our program, we talked briefly about the 17 Global Goals set by the United Nations in 2015 to end poverty, fight climate change and tackle all forms of inequality by 2030. We explained how Guiding members around the world were taking part in the #TeamGirl Challenge to learn more about these issues and make a difference in their own communities. We then introduced the NSP: Action on Poverty and talked about how through this project, Canadian Guiding members are addressing Goal #1 No Poverty.

Our first activity was Factors Leading to Poverty from the GGC NSP Instant Meeting.  We divided the girls into 3 colour groups - 70% yellow, 20$ red and 10% blue. Everyone then lined up across the centre of the room and we read out a series of statements from the meeting plan. For each statement, the girls had to take a certain number of steps forwards or backwards, depending on the colour of their card. Once we had finished, we had a reflection discussion about what the girls thought and felt during the activity and what statements stood out the most to them.

Our second activity was What Is Poverty Like? from Together We Can (Girlguiding UK, 2011). For this activity, the girls were divided up into groups of four and asked to describe poverty using their senses.

• Sight - How do others see you? What are your surroundings?
• Sound - What do others say to you? What background noises surround you?
• Smell - What kind of food is cooked around you? What is happening around you?
• Taste - What kinds of food do you eat?
• Feel - Where do you live? What is it like there? What emotions do you feel?

Although not an entirely successful activity, it did get everyone thinking about how poverty could affect a person's environment and living situation.

Team Build
For the Team Build section, we tried three of the activities from the #TeamGirl Challenge Pack. First up was Crocodile River. In this activity, girls are divided into teams and provided with newspaper. Their challenge is to get their whole team across a river full of crocodiles! The only way to get across the river is by stepping on floating logs or stones (the newspaper). Only one person may stand on a log or stone at a time. The logs and stones can be picked up and moved, but not thrown. The instructions said to provide each team with a number of pieces of newspaper equal to 1/3 the size of the group - i.e. 3 squares for 9 people, however, in order for this activity to work, the group needs a minimum of 3 squares regardless of the group size. We had four groups of four so that the activity wouldn't take too long (where girls might get bored).

The second activity was In Balance, where everyone stands in a circle and holds hands. The idea is that they can then lean backwards and the circle will help everyone stay upright. The second part is to have alternate girls lean inwards and outwards, and, again, the circle will help everyone stay upright. I have to label this activity as USE WITH CAUTION. If your girls are different sizes and strengths, they may hurt each other as the strain placed on hands and arms can be too much. It may work better if the girls linked arms rather than holding hands - but we didn't try this.

The final activity was the most popular - Tallest Tower. Each team was provided with straws and tape and given the goal of creating the tallest possible free-standing structure in the allowed time.


Team Action
To end our program, each group of girls was asked to use the last five minutes in order to come up with a list of ideas of how we could take action on poverty. The ideas were varied and we will use them going forward to complete both the #TeamGirl Challenge and the NSP: Action on Poverty.

The meeting ended with reminders for next week, distributing forms for the Planetarium trip on November 1st, and we closed with Taps.