MACOMB TOWNSHIP, Mich. – The Girl Scouts are much more than just wonderful delicious cookies. It’s about gaining experience and learning lessons; Sometimes, those are life lessons that can help others.
Local 4 asked a few of the scouts responsible for the food pantry why they joined the scouts.
- Meet new friends.
- Lots of fun activities.
- To help people in need.
Elizabeth, Tessa Ruth, and Eleanor are just half of Girl Scout Troop 76580.
“This is the nighttime side,” said Tessa Ruth. “It has all our names under the stars and a tent.”
The girls showed off what they built to earn their bronze award They came up with the idea to build a food pantry on a camping trip.
“One of the unique things we did with the building of this project is they learned how to build and use their hands and use tools, and not a lot of kids their age get to do that,” said Scout Leader Jim Devleeschouwer.
“We had to build it completely from scratch,” Ruth said. “We painted it, and we had to saw down the wood to size and put on the shingles.”
It went pretty smooth,” Devleeschouwer said. “They loved it. They had a lot of fun doing it.”
Well, there was at least one thing that wasn’t fun, according to the Girl Scouts.
“Sanding,” Ruth said. “Definitely sanding as it makes your arms hurt really bad.”
Devleeschouwer says someone donated a kitchen cabinet to help, but they bought the rest of the materials with money from cookie sales.
Besides getting their bronze awards, the girls wanted to help others, whether that’s local families or fellow students at Ojibwa Elementary.
“We’re hoping it’s going to be a self-sustaining food pantry so people in the community can come and donate by just coming by, dropping the food off when they see it’s getting low and as people need, no questions asked, they just take what they need,” Devleeschouwer said.
“That’s just kind of how it works,” Ruth said. “Someone might take something, and someone might leave something. It’s kind of just an infinite loop, you know.”
Hopefully, the need isn’t infinite, but certainly, the human spirit was involved.
“It feels like our hard work had a reward,” Ruth said. “Yeah, no more sanding.”
To get the initial amount of food, the Girl Scouts had a food drive, and they received a great response from that.
Devleeschouwer told Local 4 that when they came out to check the pantry, they had even more food stored after one day.
