Port Washington Girl Scouts Provide Valentines for Vets

Port Washington Girl Scouts helped make the season a little brighter for Long Island’s veterans, just in time for Valentine‘s Day.

The troops opened their hearts to Long Island’s veterans by participating in Assemb. Michelle Schimel’s annual Valentines for Vets program. Girl Scouts Troops 417 and 450 hosted a Val4Vets event to collect personal care item donations and make handmade valentines for veterans. Each year, Schimel personally delivers the handmade valentines and donated items to the Long Island State Veterans Home in Stony Brook and the Northport VA Medical Center.

Sandy Portnoy from Schimel’s office attended the Val4Vets event and spoke to the girls about the program and how important it is not to forget our veterans. She told the girls how much the veterans look forward to receiving the valentines. The Port Washington Association of Girl Scouts has hosted Val4Vets for the past seven years.

At the event, Tyler, a 5th grader from Sousa Elementary School in Port Washington, spoke to the Girl Scouts about his birthday bag project, where he asks his guests for money instead of gifts. He collected $3,000, which he donated to the Wounded Warrior Project. He chose the Wounded Warrior Project because he said that the veterans helped our country and he wanted to help them. When asked why he picked the birthday bag project, Tyler said “I realized that it’s not always about me, but we should think about other people, too.”

The Girl Scouts ended the evening with a SWAPS exchange. SWAPS are a Girl Scout tradition of exchanging keepsakes, started in the 1950s, to promote friendships and create memories of their meeting.