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Junior Girl Scouts learn from the gift of giving
Photo
Dustin Livesay | The Vindicator: Standing are Patricia Johnston, left, of the Summit Academy of Warren and Audrey Walker, right, of the Sojourner House of Youngstown as they receive school supplies collected by the eight members of Poland Girl Scouts Troop 80415 for the students at the two schools. The Scouts are, from left in front, Haley Trolio, Chryssa Papakirk, Mary Liddle and Anna Simeon and, from left in back, Laural Zarbaugh, Molly Malner, Emma White and Grace Economus.
By JoAnn Jones
POLAND
The eight girls in Junior Girl Scout Troop 80415 — all who just finished the fifth grade — are learning early in their lives the joy received by helping others in need.
All eight were working toward their Bronze Award, the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can achieve. To earn the honor, they had to identify a need in the community, come up with a plan, and execute the plan.
The need? School supplies for students who can’t afford them.
The plan? Make boxes to collect unused school supplies during locker clean-out at Poland’s McKinley Elementary at the end of the school year.
Execution of the plan? Present school supplies they had collected to children at the Sojourner House in Youngstown and Summit Academy Schools in Warren.
Advised by their troop leaders Heather Trolio and Julie Liddle, the girls came up with the idea of setting out boxes at the end of the school year.
“As parents we know the excess of material that is discarded at the end of the school year,” Trolio said. “The girls came up with the idea of setting up the boxes. They made the boxes themselves.”
The girls labeled the boxes with a list of things they were looking for: binders, calculators, glue, pencils, rulers, protractors, markers, scissors, and even locker decorations.
“The sale value for the items the girls collected was $850,” Liddle said.
Trolio said the girls also chose the two organizations they wanted to help.
“Julie and I helped them brainstorm what they wanted to do,” Trolio said. “We came up with a list of organizations and gave them information on them. They chose these two.”
Audrey Walker, Operations Manager of the Sojourner House Domestic Violence Program, explained to the girls what domestic violence was when the girls presented her with school supplies Aug. 20 at the Poland Branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
“When there is domestic violence, children can’t live at home,” Walker said. “The mother wants to take them to a safe place. It’s called a shelter.”
“We furnish these children with whatever they need,” she said. “I’ll take these school supplies back to the shelter, and we’re going to make them a backpack.”
“And do you know what?” she said as she addressed the troop, “When they walk out the door for school, I’m going to tell them, ‘The Girl Scout troop did this for you.’”
“Don’t think you did something small,” Walker told the girls. “It’s going to help us help them.”
Patricia Johnson, a licensed counselor who is a behavior specialist, accepted the supplies for the Summit Academy Schools.
“We have many students in our schools who don’t have the money for school supplies,” said Johnson, who also runs the school store where students can spend play money they have earned for good behavior.
“Every time a student runs out of supplies and comes to the school store,” she told the girls, “I’ll remind them where the supplies came from.”
The eight Junior Girl Scouts, who will move on to the next level of Cadet in September, met weekly during the summer and every two weeks during the school year, Trolio said. She added they do more than earn badges and do service projects because she and Liddle like to offer the girls fun activities, too, such as paddle boating.
“Julie and I are both newer leaders,” she explained. “They are a great group of girls. To see a group of young ladies come together like this, and the camaraderie they have is very rare. They have just built this bond.”
“Once we started telling them about the Sojourner House, they wanted to know what it was all about,” Liddle said. “They immediately had a desire to help.”
Both women will move on with the troop when the girls become Cadets because Liddle’s daughter Mary and Trolio’s daughter Haley are members of the troop. The Cadet level of Girl Scouts is for girls in grades six, seven and eight.
“Girl Scouts brought us together,” Trolio said, “and we started with them as fifth-graders.”
“It was just with one locker clean-out they were able to do this,” she added. “They collected so much from that, they didn’t have to collect anywhere else.”