Sunday, April 29, 2012

April Showers ...

... does more than just bring May flowers, it provides support for families in need.

Last weekend, local Girl Scouts stood outside of Wal-Mart collecting donations for their "April Showers" personal care item drive.  They also went door to door passing out empty bags to be filled with donations.  On Saturday, April 28 they went back out collecting those bags.  I tagged along with troop number 4596 as they collected and turned in their donations.
The girls worked very hard going door to door, checking for bags filled with items such as bath tissue, toothpaste, diapers etc.  They were very excited to see all of the items that were donated!
The adults had a chance to teach a valuable life lesson to the girls while they were working.  The girls wondered who the items were for and why they needed them.  We talked to them about caring for families that are in need, and I could tell that they understood.

After all of their bags were collected the next step was to mark out the barcodes and sort them into piles of like items. 
Then they counted each individual item and boxed or bagged them up to be delivered to the Union Food Pantry.  Troop 4596 collected 2,365 items and earned 2 hours of community service for each girl.

When we arrived at the food pantry, volunteers were hard at work placing items on shelves and in boxes.  Their faces were lit with joy over all of the items that the Girl Scouts had collected!
We stayed and helped put items away for a little while.  It was so wonderful working beside the dedicated volunteers!  They have such a heart for our community!
In all, the Union area Girl Scout troops collected over 16,000 items that will be used to help people in our community.  It will be a little while before national totals are tallied, but if one small town collected over 16,000 items ... you can just imagine the impact that a nation of small towns and large cities can make!

Way to go girls!  We are proud of your hard work and your dedication to serving your community!

Gussie Schmitz

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