This year, as you should know by now, is our 100th year of Girl Guiding in WA.

One of the main things Girl Guides do is giving back to and working for the community. This is known as “Service.”

This year there are two major service projects we are asking WA Guides to get involved in. One is for our old friend, Radio Lollipop – the child-focused radio station that brings smiles to the faces of sick kids at PMH. And the other is for our much loved camp accommodation in York: Our Barn.

Service Challenge: Radio Lollipop

Girl Guides WA was an important contributor to starting up Radio Lollipop in the 1980s, and we actually share a birthyear with the children’s hospital (1915), so we feel very close to the organisation.

What’s more, hundreds of giggling Girl Guides have been ‘on-air’ on Radio Lollipop and visited the hospitalised children to bring gifts, entertainment and donations since the 80s.

Why is Radio Lollipop important? Sick kids can listen for several hours a day to this in-house station run by volunteers. It is located in the PMH Megazone and provides fun and entertainment through music, stories, games and competitions. Children can listen to the station and enter a competition or request their favourite song, or go and see the Radio Lollipop studio during studio hours.

What are we going to do to help this time? To celebrate our Centenary of Guiding in WA, we are planning to donate 1000x Stationary/Activity Packs for the sick kids through Radio Lollipop. These will be taken to the hospital every month for a year in the lead up to our 100th birthday in June 2015.

Details of the age groups and what you need to put into the packs can be found on the Service Challenge page of this blog.

Our Barn Fundraising Challenge

Our Barn needs new loos and showers!

Nearly 40 years of use are beginning to show with loose or lost tiles in the shower recesses, basins beginning to rust through, and the floor in need of maintenance (amongst other things!) While it’s still fine for use, we are trying to get ahead of the game by acting now to improve the bathrooms before they become unusable.

We have to raise a LOT of money to do these renovations. Now, we believe there are at least 100 active Guide Units in the state, and we have calculated that if each unit was able to raise $500 we can hope for at least $50,000. This would give us a fantastic start when applying for grants and similar funding – especially if we could show that it had been raised by our members. 

Now it’s your chance to get really creative! This challenge runs over 2 years so you and the Girl Guides in your unit can start coming up with brilliant ideas now to raise just $250 per year to be part of this fantastic project. Find out more on the Our Barn Project page of this blog.

So, have you had any great ideas to make money for Our Barn? Leave a comment to tell us what they are.