Khyanne White, Olivia Derr, Eden Hill and Audrey Mather, all fifth-graders in Troop #7594 of Mount Vernon, decided to pursue the highest award available to them as Juniors.
According to the Girl Scouts website, "Earning the Girl Scout Bronze Award involves the time to complete a Journey, and then a suggested minimum of 20 hours building your team, exploring your community, choosing your project, planning it, putting your plan in motion and spreading the word about your project."
A qualifying project requires the scouts to identify a positive change they could make in their community.
"They decided to do something for our local community and make bags for our homeless ladies and gentlemen," troop co-leader Megan White told the Mount Vernon News. "The girls said they see them walking around everywhere and feel bad they are not clean and don't have what they need. We sat with them and made a list of what they thought would be good to put in these bags. The list the girls made was absolutely amazing, and they put so much thought into it."
The items the girls decided each bag should have were socks, shampoo, conditioner, a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, deodorant, fingernail clippers, combs, two washcloths, a mask, sanitizer, body wash, gloves for winter, feminine products for the women's bags, hot chocolate, candy, granola bars and more.
"After finishing their list," White said, "they started asking local businesses, friends and family and also the community for donations to purchase the items we needed. With the help of so many people ... and of course the girls donated money, they were able to get everything for 60 bags. They made 30 for women and 30 for men. The girls shopped at Walmart and Dollar Tree. Some of the items were donated from local people; other items were bought on Amazon since we found them in bulk."
On Nov. 15, the girls delivered the bags to the Winter Sanctuary, the homeless shelter in Mount Vernon.
Along with participating in every step of the project, the Juniors also chose and completed a Think Like a Citizen Scientist Journey. That required them to follow the scientific method for three experiments and complete a Take Action Project. After completing the experiments and writing about a woman in science, for fun they made ice cream in a baggy.
Their accomplishment will be celebrated on June 10, as the girls bridge from Juniors to Cadettes.
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