The Congressional Award Program is about challenge.
The award offers young people the opportunity to set personal goals and achieve them. Any student from age 13-½ to 24 years old can register and set their own goals in four areas: Volunteer Public Service, Personal Development, Physical Fitness, and Expedition/Exploration. Even special needs children can work towards goals within their scope and ability and receive awards.
There are six levels of awards: Bronze, Silver, and Gold certificates and Bronze, Silver, and Gold Medals, each requiring a specific number of hours committed to the four areas of development.
This program requires an advisor (someone overseeing the whole program) and validators (knowledgeable adults to verify goals and accomplishments). Since a collection of unrelated volunteer service activities are not acceptable, we legally incorporated a group, to oversee all volunteer projects for its members, thus was born Georgia Teen Service Organization. For Personal Development activities, some of the teens built our website (www.gateenservice.org).
We have so much fun on our volunteer days! We’ve worked with Habitat for Humanity, The Red Cross, Hands-On Atlanta, Operation Christmas Child, Miracle League (special needs baseball leagues), senior citizens homes, one-on-one with special needs children, local libraries, Clean-Up America and more. We’ve helped build houses, re-barcoded library resources, planted trees, painted fingernails for bedridden senior citizens, worked with autistic children, taught swing-dancing at a senior citizen home, entertained crowds with singing and other fun activities. Wherever we work, we are asked back, because we work hard and still make it fun.
For personal development, we worked on our acting, modeling and auditioning skills. We had professional headshots made, took public speaking classes, auditioned for movies (and got roles!), and modeled in fashion shows. Setting goals helped us focus our energy on what we really wanted to accomplish, and it was exciting and rewarding to achieve them.
For physical fitness, though the goals must be noncompetitive, students can set goals in competitive sports or situations. The goals must be measurable – shorten running time, swim faster, increase stamina, or lose weight – and recorded with time sheets, photographs, journal, diary, or by other means.
To achieve our fitness goals, we worked out every day at the gym, swimming, lifting weights and running. We gained speed, added muscle and lost weight!
Expedition/Exploration is a challenge through an interaction with the wilderness or by immersing yourself in an unfamiliar culture. Some students have lived on Amish farms for a week, others have spent the night in the woods. For our Gold Medal, we planned, prepared and spent a week in Costa Rica, immersed in the culture – without our parents or family. We brushed up on our Spanish, researched the culture and climate, and were amazed to see monkeys swinging in branches outside a zoo!
