Girl Scouts serve the poor, learn valuable lessons

Intermountain Catholic

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The United Way of Northern Utah donates ?Live United? T-shirts® in recognition of Gir Scout Troop 554's community service project in collecting toiletry items for those in need at Catholic Community Services. IC photo by Christine Young

OGDEN — In March, Junior Girl Scout Troop 554 from Saint Joseph Catholic Elementary School completed a community service project for Catholic Community Services (CCS) in Ogden.

"Our girl scouts asked the students, teachers and parents of students from the school for donations of travel size toiletry items, such as toothpaste, shampoo, conditioners, lotions, tooth brushes, tooth paste, and other items to be placed in hygiene kits," said Laura Burbridge, Girl Scout leader with Troop 554. "Then CCS puts them in kits and they are distributed to people to come by CCS for food or who needs these items.

"The project was a huge success and the girls collected over 2,500 items," said Burbridge. "On March 27, we took all these items to the CCS office in Ogden. This whole process has taught the girls that they can make a difference in someone’s life and be part of something bigger than themselves. It was a big project and it would be nice to share their experience with others who read the Intermountain Catholic.

"It meant a lot collecting the items," said Girl Scout Destina Bermejo-Navarro.

Stephanie Laubacher said, "We collected the items for people who need them and cannot afford to buy these items. We also donated these items ourselves."

Gabbey Chieppa said they also did this to earn their Bronze Award. "When we took the items over, the people said it was like Christmas because they hardly ever get toiletry items and now they could feel clean."

Maddie Gale said they collected all the items by asking all the grades to bring in any toiletry items their families had collected from hotels.

"We said the class who brought in the most would be the most charitable class," said Gale. "Then when we took the items to CCS, we got to tour their facility, and we got to see how they sort all the food and put the meals into boxes for people when they come in. People have cards they punch so they can keep track of who comes in and when they come in."

"To promote the contest and the collection, we made signs and put them on all the doors around the school, and we went to the classroom and told them about the project," said Angela Hebert. "We told them what we needed.

Madeline Burbridge said, "After the items were collected, we had a troop meeting and we sorted all the items into different boxes before we took them to CCS.

Burbridge said they tossed around a few ideas and came up with this idea because this way they could involve the students at Saint Joseph Elementary and utilize their resources as well as benefit CCS. It was a nice partnership.

"Kelly Farley, CCS resource coordinator, made it a point to tell us they get very few hygiene items at CCS," said Burbridge. "This donation will have a great impact on the people utilizing their resources."

"Jacqueline Olberding came up with the idea of soliciting our community service project to the people patronizing Smith Food & Drug Store in Ogden," said Burbridge. "We had our cookie booth at Smith’s. Jackie made up flyers, and the girls distributed the flyers to the people entering the store. Some people would purchase the items we needed and then would bring them back to our cookie booth. So we had a box of items the community donated as well."

"It was in the morning before the cookie booth was opened," said Olberding. "My dad and I thought this would be a good way to help the people in need. So we typed up a flyer really quick, and made 300 copies to distribute. I also heard a lady got one of our flyers and came by our school and dropped off a whole bunch of items. It helped out a lot.

"Classroom Sixth A won with 463 items collected," said Olberding. "So we gave them a certificate in a frame."

"We did not want to give them a prize because then they would just do it for the prize," said another girl scout. They also got a box of Girl Scout cookies."

"We are going to do something again next year for CCS in partnership with the school," said Burbridge. "We will possibly do a food drive or collect items for Saint Martha’s Baby project for babies being born into poverty. They also hold an Easter Egg Hunt that the girls might help out with next spring. What is so great is the community rallied around the girls."