Girl Scouts deliver joy
Local Girl Scouts have been hard at work spreading Christmas cheer as four St. Marys troops combined to send handmade Christmas cards to all three nursing homes in town, deliver food to Agape Ministries and even adopted children from an Angel Tree.
“We just wanted to do something nice around Christmastime, especially since it’s been such a difficult year for a lot of people,” said Nancy Mauter, leader of Troop 20579. “We thought the residents would like a little something to read so my girls — since they’re sixth and seventh graders, they’re a little older — wrote a little letter in their cards that said maybe what each girl’s favorite part about the holiday is or some other little thing to make it a bit more than just a signature in a card.”
Mauter’s troop made about 120 cards that were gathered together and delivered to Otterbein — St. Marys after one of the girls asked her mother, who works at the senior life center, if she could help deliver the cards to those who could use them. Mauter added that the card writing was not done for a badge or any other reward other than the good feeling of spreading joy.
While Troop 20055 also made Christ
mas cards for nursing home residents, the 15 girls wanted to do more, going above and beyond what troop Leader Ashley Hullinger originally had in mind.
“We made 38 Christmas cards and candy bags for the residents at Grande Lake Healthcare Center so that way each resident gets a card. But the girls weren’t done there,” she said. “We adopted three children from the Angel Tree program; a 15-month- old boy, a 4-year-old little boy and a 15-year- old girl. We were able to collect more than 40 gifts between the three of them.”
Hullinger was proud of the generosity shown by her troop of young girl scouts. Troop 20055 consists entirely of girls from kindergarten to third grade.
The decision to help out other kids who may not otherwise have presents to open Christmas morning dates back to around Thanksgiving when Hullinger said the idea first came up.
“All the girls were super excited (about it),” she said. “We used a certain amount of money from our troop funds that we use for trips, badges and uniforms and we used that to get the gift piles started and then the girls worked on earning money to donate additional gifts.”
With two of the three nursing homes covered by Mauter and Hullinger’s troops, Troop 2049 and Troop 21259 Leader Sarah Howe and her co-leaders Kathy Brotherwood and Julie Turos had their girls make sure that Vancrest — St. Marys also got handmade Christmas cards. With holiday cards for each nursing home checked off the list, the two remaining troops felt they weren’t quite done giving yet.
“We combined the efforts of the troops and we did a little food drive for Agape,” Howe said. “We had been meeting virtually and posting videos asking the girls to do different things for the community and I had two moms who volunteered to let me put big tubs on their front porches so the girls could drop the food off in the tubs and then I came by on Wednesday and gathered everything up to take to Agape.
“We almost filled a shopping cart with all the food that the girls had donated.”
Howe added that by researching and participating in a philanthropic event such as the food drive, the girls learned how to better understand various concepts such as the difference between want and need and what it means to be philanthropic.
“It’s more than just giving money,” she explained. “They learned that it’s also about giving time and volunteering, things like that. They also learned the value of things and actions.
“It was pretty cool and I’m glad we were able to get something done for Christmas despite everything COVID has thrown at us.”