Girl Scouts Earn Bronze Awards, Visit Home of the Sparrow

On March 14, 2012, 18 fifth-grade girls, mostly from Charlestown Elementary, completed their Bronze Award project! The Bronze Award is the highest award a fifth-grade Girl Scout can earn! Very few fifth-grade girls actually earn this award, so it is quite an achievement!

In honor of the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts this week, the girls did a special project for Home of the Sparrow. The Home is a transitional housing organization for single mothers that has been open for 15 years on East Swedesford Road in East Whiteland.

The Scouts were there to deliver 14 "Bash Boxes" containing birthday party supplies and celebration items for Easter, 4th of July, Halloween and Christmas. The girls have spent the last 6 months learning about the Home of the Sparrow and what life is like for the women and children in the transitional housing program.

The girls reached out to their sister Girl Scouts in Great Valley school district, friends and family, and community merchants (special thanks to Exton Target, Phoenixville Giant, Malvern Wegman's, Exton Place, Party City Exton, and Brandywine Children's House) to collect decorations, paper plates, table clothes, costumes and other supplies so these families can enjoy special holiday and birthday time together. They also used their hard-earned Girl Scout cookie money to purchase even more supplies.

When they visited the Home of the Sparrow to deliver the boxes, they got to talk to graduates of the program—women who had stayed there. They had a chance to ask questions of Nicole Hall, a clinical supervisor there, about how Home of the Sparrow handles different situations, what training is necessary to work there and even how fundraisers like the annual jazz festival are run.

Girl Scout Kate Corrigan said the Easter box was her favorite to put together, and her friends mostly agreed.

"I also liked Halloween," said another Scout, Sydney Luning, "because when we went to Party City, there was a big costume part and we got to go through there looking for the decorations. That was fun."

The following girls, from Charlestown Elementary unless otherwise noted, will receive their bronze award from Girl Scout of Eastern Pennsylvania this spring:

Kyla Assayag
Kerry Cantrell
Kate Corrigan
Erin Cracas
Ava Dremann
Rachel Gober
Maggie Haefner
Jenny Huffman
Sydney Luning
Maria Martinez
Morgan Merriman
Addison Schmidt
Stephanie Slaby
Olivia Stewart
Casey Winter
Julia Zullo
Gemma Zucchi
Tannaz Tofighie - from KDM

I am very proud of all of the girls! They worked together as a team, learned a lot about our community and gave of themselves to help others. They are wonderful role models for all girls in the community.

Laura Assayag
Troop Leader
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[Pete Kennedy contributed to this announcement written by Laura Assayag.]