Upon turning five, we told Sophia she could join Sparks, which is the youngest branch of Girl Guides. She decided that she would, and well the rest is history. Sophia has started her Guiding career and seems to love it so far. The best thing is that there are five girls from her school who are part of the group and that includes one of her bestest friends, Rebecca.
There are 28 girls in her group and three leaders. Seeing that I was going to be taking her every week, I decided that I could offer another pair of helping hands each week. Well, I had two choices...parent helper or official leader. I decided to take the plunge and renew my involvement in Guiding and have become a Sparks leader (once all my paper work is in!). It feels great to be going back to something that was such an important part of my growing up. I love Guiding and all that it has to offer. Hopefully, Sophia will love it as much as I did/do.
So far the unit has done program work and one volunteer activity where we teamed up with the Food Bank here in Regina and helped with their campaign. Sophia and another Spark, and I, went door to door in a little area gathering food donations. She and her pal, Kira, had a great time, and I think they got a feeling for what it means to help others.
We've also sold Mint Chocolate cookies (yummy!!). Sophia was so pumped to be selling cookies that she took her case door to door in the neighbour hood. In about half an hour her case was sold. She went on to sell to more cases to family and friends, and unsuspecting University students and faculty.
this is a photo from the video David used to help sell the cookies at the university. Her cuteness won over many a person. Enrollment took place just last week. This is the ceremony that marks the first year girls' official membership in the unit. Each girl receives a Trefoil pin, a year 1 pin and a "Being a Spark" keeper (aka badge). The girls got to choose the theme for the event. Can you imagine what a group of 28 five and six years old wanted? "Pink Purple Sparkle Princess" party. Yup. Each girl made a crown, and little paper dolls of herself. On the night, each girl waited patiently in line and walked through the castle that one of the leaders had made. The castle led the girls to the waiting leaders (all four of us --I had just been enrolled as a leader right before the girls--colour me surprised!) who gave them their certificate, pins and keeper. Then we had cake. I had made a pink strawberry lemonade cake which was iced with purple icing and decorated with a cut out fondant princess (in pink and purple!) and covered with sprinkles and silver balls. It was a hit. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture....
that's me doing my first official Guider role...giving out the keepers to each girl.
waiting for cake- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
