Excellence Night on the Treasure of Virtue

by Deborah Pace Rowley 

Each year, the young women in the LDS church hold an event called Excellence Night. The purpose of this event is to spotlight the goals the girls have accomplished during the year. This outline could be adapted for a youth group of another religious faith or even changed to become a special event for a Girl Scout troop. The theme for this evening was the Treasure of Virtue. We had decorated the room with different size treasure chests or “fancy boxes” and trunks we had collected from the homes in our neighborhood.  One chest was labeled Faith. Another chest was labeled Divine Nature etc. Each girl had placed an item in the appropriate chest that represented the goal that she had completed for the year. For example: One girl put in a pair of running shoes because she had accomplished her goal of running for the school cross country team.

At the beginning of the evening, we had several older young women sitting at the front. They had been assigned to read the story “The Treasure of Virtue.”  At certain places in the story, the reader would pause and we would have 3 or 4 girls come to the front and open a chest and tell about the goals that they had accomplished in that value. Then we would continue with the story. At the end of the evening we sent the girls on a treasure hunt. They went to various places around the church building, collecting clues which finally led them to a key and then a locked chest. When they opened the chest, they found their own special copy of the story and a key on the chain to remind them to treasure their virtue. It was a meaningful evening and a fun way to recognize the girls for what they had accomplished.  Feel free to use this story and adapt it to make your own special recognition night.