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Eleven East Meadow girls volunteered 50 hours of their time to individualized projects in order to earn the Silver Award. They were congratulated on their dedication to volunteerism and Girl Scouts at a pinning ceremony at Woodland Middle School on June 1.
Devoted Troop Leader Sarah Ayers, whose daughter was among the scouts honored, opened her home to the girls after meetings and on weekends in an attempt to help them accomplish their goals. Leader Jeanette Rotolo recently joined Troop 1393 and also assisted, but said Ayers was the anchor who kept the girls on course, a necessary trailblazer on their path to success.
In addition to the many parents in attendance were Councilman Gary Hudes, Legislator Norma Gonsalves and Town Supervisor Kate Murray who each commended the girls on their accomplishment and thanked the guardians and leaders for their tireless assistance.
Silver Award projects included working with the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation of Long Island, the Farmingdale Dog and Cat Clinic and the Stepping Stone Day School to name a few.
Silver Award Projects
Samantha Ayers: For my silver award I worked with the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation of Long Island. I collected over 60 pounds of candy and gave the candy to Barry Tech culinary students. They made gingerbread houses, which were auctioned at UCPF’s Festival of Trees. I ran a booth at the festival of trees making gingerbread tree cookies and Santa Cookies with children.
Rosemary Anne Snyder: The project informs the community about the problem of the growing feral cat population in our area. It presents the Farmingdale Dog and Cat Clinic as part of a solution to the problem. Participants will make and donate heating pads for dog and cat patients at the clinic using socks and white rice.
Jenna Goldstein: With this project I ran reading workshops and classes to help children learn to read and enjoy reading. I collected six boxes of new and gently used children books and donated them to St. Raphael Church and Lutheran outreach shelters.
Victoria Ann Rose and Rebekah Sun Louie: We created a reading workshop to teach the importance of reading every day and how reading can improve their schoolwork. We supplied each child with a reading log to record their summer reading, along with a summer reading list.
Taylor Oommen: My silver award project is about helping a ranch filled with mistreated, abused and poor, weak animals in different ways. I volunteered at Double D Bar Ranch and was lucky enough to spend time with the animals and do different activities with them. I fed and groomed the horses and cleaned many stalls.
Gabrielle Eversgerd, Samantha Schook and Amber Stehr: We visited Parrots of the World and spoke to Marc Marrone about how to care for exotic animals. Together with research and practice, we put together workshops for people looking into owning exotic pets. Our workshop had many pets to touch and see including chinchilla, snakes, tortoises, hedgehog, crested gecko, bearded dragon and a rose tip tarantula.
Michelle Romeo and Meg Floody (Independent Girl Scouts): We worked together to create a Science Center for a preschool for special needs children at Stepping Stone Day School. We met with the director of the school to determine what we needed for a science center and then collected those items through donations.
