LIVING IN MANVILLE
By:Mary Ellen Zangara
Girl Scouts have a new award to work for in addition to earning the Silver and Gold award and Catina Santoro hopes to be one of the first to earn Scouting’s new Bronze award.
Catina, a third-year Junior Scout in Troop 861, is the first Scout in Manville to work on the award and will receive the Bronze award upon completion of her project in May. She has been a Girl Scout for only three years but has her mind set to earn the awards.
"The Girl Scout Bronze award is the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can earn. It shows you have made a promise to help others, improve your community and world, and become the best you can be," according to the award listing.
Before Catina began planning her project, she had to complete badges and patches. "Now and Then Stories Around the World" and "Computer Fun" were the two of the badges she completed.
A Girl Scout sign also needed to be completed and Catina did the Sign of the Rainbow. She has also earned the Junior Aide Patch, Junior Girl Scout Leadership award, Girl Scouting in the USA, and Girl Scouting in My Future. All of these helped Catina start her Bronze project.
The requirements for the award require that the project take 15 hours to complete including planning and organizing, with a minimum of at least seven to eight hours needed for finishing the work.
Projects must also provide a community service.
Trying to think of a project to meet the requirements for the award was easy for Catina.
"I went to the library and asked Ruth Bielanski what I could do," she said. Mrs. Bielanski responded by giving Catina a choice of either storytelling or crafts for the children.
Catina decided to do crafts, so she began looking for projects in magazines and some crafts that her mother used to do when she was class mom.
The brainstorming started in the late summer and when Scouting started up again for the year in September, Catina officially began the work. She chose 10 crafts to be part of her craft class program.
The classes are free and will be held in the community room at the Manville Public Library.
Starting this Saturday, there will be three craft dates for the project. Four classes on Saturday beginning at 9:30 a.m. until the library closes and four on April 27, with the last two set for May 18.
Catina’s project started by coming up with the craft ideas, and listing all the supplies needed to complete them. She made a list of supplies and went to merchants to see if they could help by making donations for the crafts. Help was received from the Dollar Store in Manville and Treasure Island in North Plainfield. The remaining supplies were purchased by Catina and her mom and now she has all the supplies to complete the crafts.
For the April 20th classes, the crafts include a flower wreath from 9:30-10:15; Egg carton flowers 10:30-11:15; beaded alien head from 11:30-12:15 and the last one is a lanyard key chain 12:30-1:15.
On April 27 crafts planned are a picture frame from 9:30-10:15; a patriotic sign 10:30-11:15; dream catcher at 11:30-12:15 and a God’s eye from 12:30-1:15. The last set of crafts will be on May 18 will include stone painting at 9:30-10:15, and shell painting from 10:30-11:15.
Each of the classes are limited to 10 participants from grades 2-5. Sign up sheets are at the library for all the classes and registration is required.
"I am very excited about earning it (the Bronze award)" said Catina. She hopes to have a successful craft program. Please try to come out and sign up for the crafts to help Catina achieve her goal of earning the Bronze award.