Congrats to Girl Scouts Who Helped the Hungry, Learned an Important Lesson

By Joan Hadac
Editor and Publisher
Southwest Chicago Post

As a local business owner and news publisher, but also as a former Scout mom and yes, a former Girl Scout, I want to offer my hearty congratulations to the girls of Junior Troop 21668, Brownie Troop 21035, and Daisy Troop 21134, sponsored by the Village of Bedford Park but which is made up mostly of girls from the Clearing and Garfield Ridge neighborhoods.

As told to us by Scout mom Jill Bernal, the girls recently finished up a service project called “Are You Hungry?"

Jill continues:

"They wrote a letter detailing some food insecurity statistics pertaining to families in our

area and went door to door delivering paper bags, along with the letter for people to help donate to benefit the St. Blase Food Pantry in Summit," Bernal wrote. "They were then required to return to all the houses on Saturday morning to retrieve the bags. The event was an incredible success!  We had two pickup trucks full of bags and boxes of donations that were delivered to the pantry."

"The 700 paper bags were generously donated from Jewel (near Archer and Mayfield).

"The girls were responsible for checking the expiration dates of the food and sorting all the goods into piles so that everything could be repacked.

"I spoke with Teresa at St. Blase and made arrangements for the food to be brought to them

on Wednesday, April 30^th.  We filled three oversized SUV’s with canned, boxed, and bagged goods. The girls all helped to load the vehicles and then unload when we arrived at St. Blase. The Sisters were overcome with joy and gratitude with the efforts of the girls.  Once all the food was unloaded the girls were given a brief tour and then brought back to the room where all the food was being stored.

"Mother Superior was crying tears of joy that the girls had filled the food room.  Mother Superior spent time talking with the girls and offering many thanks and prayers for all their hard work.  All the girls could not be there on Wednesday when the goods were delivered, so Mother Superior also asked the girls to hug and kiss all the other Scouts that weren’t able to join us today. 

"This was a very empowering event for the girls. It truly helped bring awareness regarding the needs of their community and how the power of team work can truly make a difference. Even the parents that joined us on Wednesday were emotionally moved.  Sometimes we tend to take for granted the basic things in life and become so wrapped up in our own personal worlds, we forget about the bigger picture."

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