Service from the heart
Girl Scout Troop 53680 has been busy with several community service projects from the heart. The Junior-level troup made up of 12 fourth-grade students from Streams Elementary School in the Upper St. Clair School District has been together for five years and includes Vanessa Benonis, Olivia Cuba, Kara Fisher, Keira Fortunato, Taylor Hunkele, Anna McElligott, Ava Pries, Srinidhi Rajaganapathy, Katelyn Robbins, Lillian Spencer, Emily Teklinski and Elisa Tucker. The troop is lead by adult leaders Colleen Cuba and Jill Spencer.
In December, the girls went “Caroling for a Cause.” They walked around their neighborhood, braving the cold winter weather, going door-to-door and collecting donations for Animal Friends of Western Pennsylvania. In just one hour’s time, the girls raised over $260 for the organization.
During their most recent outreach effort, the Girl Scouts prepared 85 brown bag lunches – also known as a “ZachPack” – for homeless men, women and children in the Pittsburgh area. The ZachPacks is a program that operates through Outreached Arms, Inc., an organization which serves a hot meal to the homeless on the first Tuesday of each month. The ZachPack provides them with an additional meal to take with them for the next day. The girls decorated the bags with their own artwork and included inspirational messages as well. The ZachPacks were overflowing with food, including Girl Scout cookies donated by their troop.
For their next effort, the girls will volunteer to serve at Community of Christ Church’s “Dinner for a Dollar” in Bethel Park. In addition, the girls are collecting items to donate to the Domestic Violence Services of Southwestern Pennsylvania in order to complete the badge requirements for their Girl Scout journey, “It’s Your World-Change It! Agent of Change.”