Girl Scout Project Benefits the Community Resource Center Food Pantry
Last week, three Brownies presented a carload of food and essential personal care items to the Community Resource Center Food Pantry as part of their Girl Scout project.
These three girls, Emma Paxton, Amelia Paxton, and Miranda Austin are Juliettes, which means that they participate in Girl Scouts as an individual member, not as part of a troop. As part of their program, the girls were required to do a project that would benefit the community. The girls came up with a bunch of ideas including making cards for veterans at the VA Hospital, collecting food for the food pantry, planting trees, making bird feeders and placing them in community parks, and recycling and cleaning projects. In the end, the girls voted to collect food for the food pantry.
As a group, the girls and their moms discussed how to run the project and how it would impact the community. They assigned themselves tasks and completed them. The moms discussed the purpose of the food pantry, food insecurity in general, and also specifically in Manchester. The girls were surprised that 21% of Manchester school kids receive reduced or free lunches. With three girls and two moms in the room, it was easy to visually show that one of the five would fit into this category.
The first weekend of spring break, the girls left flyers on homes throughout neighborhoods on the west side of downtown. The flyers explained the project and indicated that if a resident would like to participate, they could leave items on their porch for pick up the following weekend. Then, on Sunday, April 13th, the girls again walked the same route in the neighborhood collecting bags and bags of items designated for the Community Resource Center’s food pantry.
“Their enthusiasm for this project was endless. They ran from door to door to see if there was a bag waiting for them, often squealing with delight when they found one!,” one of the Moms recalls. The bags were loaded into the car and were later presented to Laura Seyfried, director of the Community Resource Center. The girls were given a tour of the food pantry, told about how it works, and were able to ask lots of questions!
The girls and their moms would like to thank the neighbors who were willing to participate in their project. “It was very worthwhile for them and for the food pantry. My daughter even thanked me for doing the project!”
Very excited to find multiple bags on the porch of one of the very first houses! It just added to the excitement of the afternoon and encouraged them to go to the next house, then the next house!
Emma, Amelia, and Miranda taking turns collecting items off of porches.
Collecting food and other essentials from the front porch of neighbors. The girls tried to be so careful while being extremely excited.
At the end of the afternoon, with a car full of groceries and personal care items. So proud of them.
Unloading all of the goodies to take into the food bank. (L to R) Miranda Austin, Abbi Austin, and Emma Paxton
Abbi Austin and Emma Paxton haul in a wagon full of goodies while Mrs. Paxton carries in a full tub much to the delight of Laura Seyfried, Director of the Manchester Community Resource Center. Abbi Austin is a Daisy. She presented the CRC with a dozen boxes of Girl Scout cookies that were donated by customers to troop 40453 in addition to the items collected during the Brownie project.
Abbi and Emma help unpack some of the goodies to stock the shelves at the food pantry.
Miranda helps unpack some of the goodies to stock the shelves at the food pantry.
Laura Seyfried explains how the food pantry works and procedures that are followed.
Emma Paxton studies a bulletin board inside the food pantry that describes types of food and whether they are healthy and can be eaten at any time (green light-GO), whether they are healthy, but should only be eaten several times a day (yellow light-SLOW), or if they are high in calories and not so healthy (red light-WHOA). Each shelf is labeled under the food item with these indicators so that clients can choose food wisely.
The Food Pantry is stocked today, but could always use more donations. So many are in need of extra assistance during the summer months when children are not receiving free lunches through the school system.
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