Chatham Girl Scout Gives Back To Help Refugees

CHATHAM, NJ — A 14-year-old student at Chatham Middle School student knew she wanted to do something meaningful to earn her Girl Scout Silver Award.

To earn the Silver Award, a Girl Scout must first reach the Cadette level in scouting, be in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade, and identify a community issue. The project must result in long-term change and take at least 40 hours to complete.

Aoibheann Hillman started thinking about her project as a seventh grader and met Chatham resident Catriona Smith, who volunteers with the nonprofit One World One Love, assisting with refugee apartment setups.

Hillman learned from Smith that because refugee newcomers do not have cars, utility carts are needed to transport groceries and laundry to laundromats.

“I never thought about utility carts before, and I thought that if I could raise awareness about the need for them, people would purchase them for One World One Love,” Hillman said.

Hillman decided to create an infographic, a skill she learned in school, to educate the community about this specific issue in order to draw more attention to their cause.

“Aoibheann created the infographics to advertise the drive on Facebook and designed a poster to hang in our local library. The poster includes a code to be scanned with a mobile phone that connects to the Amazon page to purchase carts. I was blown away by her effort,” Smith said.

The high-quality carts, which are built to last, cost $60 each and are kept at Smith's house until they are needed for an apartment setup. The first drive resulted in the donation of 19 carts to One World One Love.

Hillman said she intends to repost the drive in order to keep the donations coming in for newly arrived families.

One World One Love, founded in 2016, works to welcome refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war, trauma, or persecution in their home countries. The organization has assisted and served over 1,500 people from various countries in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee and other partner organizations.

In 2022 alone, One World One Love volunteers prepared 76 fully-furnished apartments in Union County and surrounding areas for over 325 refugee newcomers. This year, it has already established 40 apartments, Lisa Winkler, a One World One Love volunteer, said.

Hillman joined the Girl Scouts when she was in kindergarten, first as a Daisy Scout, then as a Brownie and now as a Cadette. She intends to stay in Scouts throughout high school, where she will complete another service project to earn the Gold Award.

"This project has inspired me to do other projects because I realize that so many people need help," Hillman said.