Scout troop keepsakes and end-of-year gifts for kids' clubs

The keepsakes scout troops and kids' clubs hang on to are the ones with every child in them: a troop book with a page per scout, a signed group photo, a frame or banner for the patches they earned, or a simple bridging card with a note from the leaders. For the youngest groups (Girl Scout Daisies, Lion dens and similar kindergarten clubs) a coloring book of the troop works especially well, because the kids can color their own page and their friends' pages. Keep the gift the same for every child, keep it cheap, and get parents' written permission before any photo goes in.

Below are keepsake ideas by budget, a step-by-step troop book, bridging gifts, and the photo permission basics.

Who these ideas suit

The youngest groups get the most out of a picture-heavy keepsake. Girl Scouts lists Daisies as grades K to 1, and Scouting America's Lion rank is for kindergarten Cub Scouts, earned by completing required and elective Adventures. Five- and six-year-olds cannot read much of a yearbook yet, but they will spend a long time finding themselves and their friends in a coloring book.

The same ideas work for any kids' club: 4-H groups, a church kids' club, a soccer team, a library reading club, a dance class.

End-of-year keepsakes by budget

Keepsake	Cost per child	Effort	Best for
Troop coloring book	Paper and ink	An evening	K to 3
Signed group photo card	Very low	An hour	Any age
Patch frame or felt banner	Low	A craft meeting	Scouts who earned patches
Troop photo book	Moderate	A few evenings	Older scouts, multi-year troops
Bridging ribbon or bookmark with the date	Very low	An hour	Bridging year
A letter from the leaders to each scout	Free	An evening	Any age, the one they keep longest

Patch frames and banners. Patches earned over a year often end up in a drawer. A simple felt banner or a shadow-box frame made at the last meeting turns them into something to hang. Make it a craft activity rather than a gift, so each scout builds their own.

Letters. A short handwritten note from the leaders to each scout, naming one thing they did well this year, costs nothing and outlasts everything else on this list.

Group photo card. Print the troop photo on cardstock, have every leader sign the back, and add each scout's name. Five minutes per card.

How to make a troop coloring book

1. Pick a theme. "Our troop year," "Things we learned," or one page per meeting or field trip.
2. Send a permission note (see below) at least two weeks before the last meeting.
3. Collect one image per scout. A parent-approved photo, or a self-portrait the child draws at a meeting. Self-portraits need no photo permission and are often the favorite pages.
4. Turn photos into line art. Our guide to turning a photo into a coloring page for free walks through free tools.
5. Caption each page. First name only, plus one thing they loved: the campout, the cookie booth, the service project.
6. Add shared pages. The troop flag or number, the leaders, a "draw your favorite meeting" page, a page for friends to sign.
7. Print one-sided and staple or bind. Our guide to printing and binding at home covers the cheap way.

Hand out the books with a small pack of crayons at the last meeting and give the kids time to color each other's pages. Our class coloring book guide has more detail and templates, and our guide to an end-of-year gift for students has more ideas that work for groups.

Bridging gifts

Bridging marks moving up a level. The Girl Scouts troop year planner mentions formal events like a bridging ceremony as an appropriate time for troops to wear their vests. Traditions vary by council and troop, so ask your service unit or experienced leaders what your troop usually does. Gifts that fit almost any bridging:

• A card with a note about what comes next.
• A ribbon, bookmark or certificate with the date.
• The troop book, saved for this day.
• A photo of the scout with the leaders who taught them.

Photos and permission

Scout and club photos often end up in places nobody planned: group chats, council newsletters, social media. A troop book is a good moment to do it properly. Brotherhood Mutual, an insurer for churches and ministries, recommends informing parents ahead of time and asking them to submit a signed photo use agreement or a "do not photograph" form, and notes that a parent or legal guardian should sign until a youth is 18. Your council may have its own form, so use that if it exists.

Use first names only, keep the book for families, and offer a self-portrait page to any family that would rather not share a photo. Our classroom photo consent guide includes a sample note you can adapt.

If nobody has time to make it

Colorkin's Classroom Edition ($199) makes a coloring storybook for a group of up to 24 children, with each child starring on a page and the PDF licensed for printing copies for the group. Pages are drafted with AI illustration tools from photos parents send and checked and finished by a person, and it arrives 5 business days after the last photo. For a small troop with a leader who has an evening free, the homemade book above does the same job for the cost of paper.

More ideas for teachers and group leaders are in the classrooms and groups hub.

Questions parents ask