Girl Scouts feed volunteers working in Hightstown
By: Lacey Korevec
A group of Cranbury Girl Scouts has decided to take on poverty and homelessness as a service platform for earning their Bronze Awards. To do so, they have formed a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that builds affordable houses for the poor worldwide.
Though the sixth-graders of Troop 1805 may not be old enough to do any physical labor at the building site in Hightstown to which they’ve been reporting, the girls have found another way to make a difference.
For the past two weekends, the Scouts have headed to the site armed with homemade breakfasts and lunches to serve to the hungry volunteers who are working to build a house for a homeless family.
Fresh-baked brownies, warm chili, chicken soup, chocolate cake and breakfast casseroles were available in excess to the workers, said Troop Leader Rosellyn Cassidy. Both weeks, the food that hadn’t been eaten was brought to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.
"They really love participating in service projects and enjoy planning and making it happen," Ms. Cassidy said, adding that she’s proud of the girls. "The menus for the last two weekends were chosen by them and they did all the planning, shopping, cooking, serving and cleanup."
While waiting for food to cook and during downtime at the housing site, the Scouts made Christmas ornaments that they will donate to local companies and shopping malls to be used in the Giving Tree program, which helps shoppers provide families-in-need with specific holiday gifts that they have requested.
"The way the program works is that mall patrons buy a Christmas ornament made by one of many local Girl Scouts," Ms. Cassidy said. "These handmade ornaments hang on a special tree in the mall and with the ornament comes a special request by a family-in-need for a Christmas present, and the mall patron fulfills that wish."
Helping out at the housing site these past two weeks came as a surprise to the troop, which had notified Habitat for Humanity about serving recently, but was expecting to actually begin the project next spring, Ms. Cassidy said. Because of the short notice, some of the troop members were not able to participate and will work on the project in the spring as originally planned.
"The Habitat volunteer coordinator called two weeks ago and asked if we were available for the next two weekends," she said. "And our girls and their parents responded with great enthusiasm."
Sixth-grader Shannon Addonizio is one of the Scouts who served food at the site. She said the volunteers were working very hard and seemed grateful for the troop’s food.
"I’m feeling happy that our leaders chose this for our project because everybody’s happy at the work site," she said. "And even though we’re not doing any work, we’re still helping a lot because now they’re being fed while they work."

