girl scouts of the colonial coast
Katie La Londe has earned her Girl Scout Silver Award. Katie is
an eighth grader at St. Matthews Catholic School in Troop 4161, a troop that
has done several community service projects!
For her project, Katie built a food donation box for her church,
St. Matthews Catholic Church. Her goal was to not only be able to collect more
food for the pantry, but to also make it easier to transport. The church had an
old shopping cart they used to collect donations and then take to the church
office. It did not hold a lot of food and since the cart was old, the wheels
did not move very well.
Katie purchased a flat cart and attached two large rubbermaid bins to it. She then had a cabinet built around the cart for donations. The
front of the cart has two holes carved out and below the holes, she put boxes
and cans. On the left side of the cabinet is a place to donate paper bags and
on the right side is a door so people can remove the cart and push it to the
main church office to be unloaded. A corkboard was attached to the top of the
cabinet for flyers and announcements on food pantry needs. The new cart
separates the boxes and cans so items are not damaged. It also helps save time
for the people in the pantry so they don’t have to sort. It’s also much easier
to maneuver. The cart not only helps the St. Vincent DePaul Society volunteers,
but it also helps those in the community who come in for food.
Katie joined Troop 4161 in first grade. Since then, she has
earned the Bronze Award, Junior Summit Award, Cadette Safety Award, Cadette My
Promise, My Faith Year 1 & 2 Award, Cadette Community Service Bar and now,
the Silver Award.
Her troop of nine girls is very active. They have done many
community service projects, including helping the SPCA with a food drive and cleaning the church's library.
The girls are also very smart with their Girl Scout Cookie
money! They have saved for the last three years in order to take a trip to
Hershey, Pennsylvania. Good job, girls!
The adventures for the troop don’t stop there. Most of the girls
are also planning to go to camp- something Katie loves!
Katie continues to help with the food collection at her church
which is also where her troop has meetings. She dedicates her time to taking
food out of the container and getting it to the pantry.
