This year has been full of unexpected challenges, but lucky for us, Girl Scouts are always ready to lend a hand and help their communities thrive. Throughout this year, you’ve shared with us how your girls have been helpful neighbors, thoughtful friends, and community leaders. We are so proud of each and every one of our Girl Scouts for the strength and determination they’ve shown with every new obstacle that’s come their way. You have been kind and gracious, and have the world how to be a girl of courage, confidence, and character, who makes the world a better place. As we prepare to enjoy the coming weeks with friends and family with hearts full of gratitude, we’d like to look back at (just some) of the ways our Girl Scouts have made a positive impact in the world this year.
December – January
Last holiday season, Girl Scouts spread cheer far and wide with service projects, toy drives, and visits to assisted living facilities. Troop 31110 made no-sew scarves to donate to their unhoused community members for their winter service unit project!
Brownies and Juniors from Troop 32096 spent time at an assisted living facility, where they played games and sang Girl Scout songs with the residents.
Troop 55541 participated in a Stomp Out Hunger event where girls packed up dry goods for people in Uganda. They volunteered for five hours packing lentils, rice, dried veggies. Some of the girls were in charge of adding scoops of food, others weighing the bags, sealing the bags, and finally labeling each package of food and placing them in a shipping box. The food was then sent to Uganda and distributed to those in need.
February
Brownies and Juniors from Troop 40002 expressed concern for their local homeless population and wondered how they could help. They decided to donate $363, all of their proceeds from the Fall Product Program, to a local organization called Shower the People. The nonprofit provides hot showers to people in need and unhoused community members with mobile shower units, which the girls were able to tour.
In honor of the 2020 Cookie Program mascot, Troop 61236 used their cookie earnings to “adopt” a fox from the Wildlife Learning Center and made enrichment toys for the animals.
Ever the animal-lovers, Girl Scouts from Troop 15018 stopped by the Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter to spend some time with the animals and read bedtime stories to shelter pets.
March
Girl Scouts Dylan and Jolina from Troop 65306 volunteered with kidSTREAM Museum at the California State University Channel Islands Science Carnival. They taught visitors slime science by mixing two liquid polymers and watching them react.
At the beginning of Covid-19 shutdowns, Troops 20029 and 25025 donated cookies to their local hospital, Hazel Hawkins, as a way to show appreciation for the medical staff’s hard work.
April
Troop 55101 also wanted to give thanks with something sweet, so they donated 300 boxes of cookies to Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria. The staff sent them back this great socially distanced photo!
As part of their 2020 Cookie Sales, Troop 10208 sent a total of 132 boxes of cookies to Marines stationed overseas. One shipment was sent to Okinawa, Japan, to III Marine Expeditionary Force COVID Operation Response Cell, while another went to Task Force 51 serving in the Middle East. Some of the recipients sent the girls back these photos!
Medical staff from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Los Robles Hospital received cookies and hand-drawn pictures from Daisy Troop 65429 as a token of their appreciation!
For their Earth Day celebration, multi-level Troop 45310 planted in their gardens, picked up neighborhood litter, demonstrated how to conserve water by brushing their teeth with the faucet off, and made pledges to use less plastic every day.
May
Girls from Troop 15020 learned about food and food insecurity during one of their virtual meetings. Wanting to make a community impact, they all delivered food safely to their troop leader’s house and along with it, donated $300 from their cookie earnings to the Second Harvest Foodbank.
Junior Troop 63042 really missed seeing and doing crafts with the residents at the local retirement home they normally visited. They decided to make bird feeder kits that the residents can assemble and hang outside with the hope that they would attract more birds for the residents to watch. The girls collected enough toilet paper rolls, pinecones, and egg cartons to make kits for four local retirement homes, with each kit having enough supplies to make at least 20 bird feeders. They made direction sheets that were emailed to the activities directors and continued collecting supplies to donate to more retirement homes.
Troops 10059, 10005, and 15000 worked together to sew and donate over 350 masks to their community. Some of the recipients included the Santa Cruz Public Health department and Santa Cruz Police Department, who sent the troops this photo as a thank you!
June
Girl Scouts from the SLO Service Unit took time to write letters for residents of local nursing homes. They wanted to brighten the resident’s day and help them not feel so isolated during difficult times.
July
Abby from Troop 61136 was inspired by our council’s Masks for Medical Heroes program and wanted to participate. When she couldn’t find any hospitals in need of masks, she reached out to a local homeless shelter and made 17 masks for men, women, and kids to donate to the Ventura County Rescue Mission.
Following the Fourth of July festivities, Troop 45104 headed to the beach to clean up any trash left by beach-goers the previous weekend. Girl Scouts are always leaving places better than they found them!
On July 25th, Royal Family Kids (RFK) Ventura, in partnership with Children’s Auxiliary Service (CSA), hosted a Foster Family Drive-Through event at Ventura Missionary Church. Girl Scouts of California’s Central Coast contributed hundreds of boxes of cookies to be included in back-to-school care packages for over 100 foster children and their families.
September
In remembrance of 9/11, Cadette Girl Scout Troop 10208 baked cookies for local firefighters and police to thank them for their service. After learning about all of the heroes of September 11th, they delivered platters of cookies to local Scotts Valley fire and police stations.
Over the course of two weekends, nineteen Girl Scouts from the Rancho Oaks Service Unit cleaned 41 pounds of trash and recyclables off of two beaches: Guadalupe Dunes Preserve and Oso Flaco Lake.
Troop 10000 also took to the sand to lead a troop clean up at Rio Del Mar Beach, where they collected over 400 pieces of trash. The girls tallied the items they found as they went along to log their information with the nonprofit, Save Our Shores.
November
Girl Scout Troops 10208 and 10232 teamed up to fill seventeen Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes using the profits they earned from the Fall Product Program. These care packages are sent to children in need around the globe each year for the holidays. The girls packed the boxes with markers and coloring books, kick balls, pumps, basic hygiene items, and school supplies for their anonymous recipients.
As the months got colder, girls from Troop 45104 made care packages for their unhoused neighbors to make sure they stayed safe and warm.
Sister Troops 61126 and 65311 typically have an annual Friendsgiving dinner, but since they could not share a meal this year, they decided to create six meals to share! The troops put together Thanksgiving meal baskets to donate to James Storehouse, which were then received by local families in need.
Service Units 356, 355, and 357 from the Monterey Peninsula/Salinas area banded together to collect 127 pies for Dorothy’s Kitchen in Salinas. Dorothy’s Kitchen provides meals and services to the homeless community in Monterey County, and the girls either baked or bought pies of all types (pumpkin, pecan, berry, and apple) for them to serve their guests on Thanksgiving.
December
Troop 44579 reached out to friends and family to organize a winter coat drive, resulting in the collection of 80 new and used jackets of all sizes for Coats for Kids.
Brownie Troop 65315 went shopping for toys to donate to James Storehouse for babies, children and youth in foster care.
Do you have a Girl Scout troop story that you’d like to share? Share the kindness and send your information and photos to media@girlscoutsccc.org! If your girl is passionate about giving back to her community and is ready to make a difference in her neighborhood and beyond, visit here! We can’t wait to share another year of gratitude with you, thank you for all that you do, Girl Scouts.
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