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You have the power to improve your community through action
Ready to help your community and earn one of the highest awards in Girl Scouting? Cadettes can team up with a small group of fellow Girl Scouts or work on their own. To earn the Silver Award, you will research an issue you care about, make a plan to address it, and then take action to improve your community.
You can become a Silver Award Girl Scout if you:
- Are in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade
- Are a registered Girl Scout Cadette
- Have completed the Bronze Award or a Cadette Leadership Award
How to earn the Girl Scout Silver Award
- Attend a REQUIRED GSCSA Silver Award Training. (Looking for a Silver Award Training? Reach out to set one up! Email us at Info@GirlScoutCSA.org.)
- Please know as you begin to plan, projects which focus on building blessing boxes, library boxes, or similar infrastructure will no longer be considered for approval. These types of infrastructure projects can be a part of a larger project, but by themselves do not meet the Highest Awards criteria for uniqueness or, ultimately, sustainability.
- Find an issue you care about.
- Build your Girl Scout Silver Award team or decide to go solo.
- Explore your community and think of how that issue affects your community.
- Choose a Silver Award project that can lead to lasting change.
- Develop your project.
- Make a plan and put it into motion.
- Reflect, share your story, and celebrate.
Resources 
Highest Award Prerequisites & FAQ
Leadership Awards
Celebrate all the ways you lead–yourself, your team, and your community–with new and updated leadership awards.
LEARN MORE
Highest Award FAQ
Going for your Bronze, Silver, or Gold Award? Get answers to the most common questions to get started.
LEARN MOREHey, grownups!
When you support Girl Scouts earning their Silver Award, you’ll help them see their own power and be by their side as they make a lasting change in their community. Download this guide to get started today.
Joyce Maienschein Leadership Grants
Cadettes, Seniors, or Ambassadors who are working on a community service, Take Action project, or High Award can apply for a Joyce Maienschein Leadership Grant to help make their dream a reality. Not only can the girls receive funding for up to $500, but they gain life skills like writing, budgeting, organization, and teamwork.
Joyce Maienschein began volunteering with Oak Ridge Girl Scouts in 1957, and by 1965 she was leading troop 69. Under Ms. M's leadership, troop 69 created and implemented numerous impactful service projects, several of which still exist in some form today. Additionally, troop 69 was the only American troop to ever receive the International Walter Donald Ross Award, given to "the most outstanding troop in the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts."
In 1978, Maienschein was awarded the Juliette Low World Friendship Medal by GSUSA in recognition of her outstanding efforts to extend opportunities for international understanding through Girl Scouting. In 1994, she founded the Girl Scout Museum at Daisy’s Place and directed it until 2009.
Who can apply?
- Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador girls or troops who are working on Take Action projects, Silver Award projects, or Gold Award projects.
How to apply?
- Fill out and submit the Application Packet
- Recipients of this grant are required to submit a Final Report upon project completion
For more information, please contact us at info@girlscoutcsa.org or the volunteer co-chairs, Patty Cook (865-659-4486) and Gail Yook (865-408-2591).
