Girl Scouts Help Feral Cat Community To Earn Silver Awards

ENFIELD, CT — Four members of Enfield Girl Scout Troop 10677 are in the final stage of earning their Silver Awards, and in the process, have been helping a large community of feral cats in Enfield and East Windsor.

To earn a Silver Award, girls need to identify an issue they care about, explore the community, develop a project, put the project into motion and then share their story. Rebecca Bemiss, Aubree Usher, Finley Gannon and Alexa Babbitt contacted Feral Cats of East Windsor, and cleaned the shelter weekly. They also contacted the Enfield Community Cat Project and asked what they could do to help.

The girls decided to make several blankets, pillows and toys, then donated them to foster families while waiting for adoption. They also conducted a month-long food drive which collected 200 pounds of food.

To complete the requirements for the award, the girls shared their story with Patch on a beautiful Sunday morning at the Enfield Central Library (Rebecca was unable to attend).

Q: What did you do to earn the Silver Award?

Alexa: We cleaned all the cats' cages, and we made lots of beds and blankets and toys for the cats. We all went out and picked out fabrics for those and made sure everybody had all of the items that we needed.

Aubree: We worked 50-plus hours each.

Q: How long have you been involved in Scouts, and what made you interested in joining?

Alexa: I've been doing Girl Scouts since first grade, and I first got interested in it because I saw my sister doing it and I thought she was really cool.

Finley: Just like Alexa, my older sister was a Girl Scout and my older brother was a Boy Scout. And so as a younger sibling, you obviously want to be your siblings and you look up to them. And I've been a Girl Scout since kindergarten.

Aubree: My older sister was in Girl Scouts and my mom was also a troop leader, so they were always going to Girl Scout meetings and doing all that stuff. So I wanted to be part of it, and I joined when I was in kindergarten and I'm in ninth grade now. When I was little, I wanted more opportunities to become friends with people because I was in a tiny school, St. Bernard's.

Q: What's the best part in your opinion of being a Girl Scout?

Alexa: I think one of the best things about being a Girl Scout is that we get to go around helping a lot of people and doing stuff that's good for everybody and not just ourselves.

Finley: I would say the best part about being a Girl Scout is helping people and the satisfaction that you get knowing that you're making a difference in the community and in people's lives. And even though it may be a lot of work, you know, at the end of the day, it's worth it.

Aubree: And probably the volunteering work we do around the community. And sometimes we help older people like the veterans. We give out cookies to them and we just help them. And we also like other volunteering stuff like in the food shelter. That's probably the best part.

To register for free Enfield news alerts and more, click here.