Submitted by Rebecca Wilson Longmont
Our amazing Brownies and Juniors in Troop 72081 love to work with younger troops and especially enjoy making a difference in our community. When we heard about “Colorado Reads: The Early Literacy Initiative” we knew we wanted to participate! We teamed up with Troops 70710 and 72558 to take action!
The goal of “Colorado Reads” is to help educate the next generation of leaders about the importance of literacy through peer mentoring and girl-led Take Action service. Our Girl Scouts determined that they would hold a read-in with the Daisies from Troop 70710, and our Brownies wrote, illustrated and read a story to them. Our Juniors also read to the Daisies and then we helped them get ready for an ice cream snack that included a gummy “bookworm!”
The girls also decided to hold a book drive to benefit an organization in our community, which was one of the challenges of the Program. From mid-March thru April, our Troops collected books by placing collection bins in our elementary school, the church where we hold our meetings, and by going through our own personal libraries. We also received a large contribution of books from Firestone Troop 778. Our girls chose the Wild Plum Center in Longmont to be our partner. After contacting Wild Plum, we learned that they service more than 300 families in the community with in –home services, as well as 100s of children in their preschool programs.
Our initial goal was to collect 300 new and gently used books so that every family would receive a book that they could keep. We were thrilled to end our collection with over 600 books, more than twice our original goal! Not only was Wild Plum able to provide a book to each family, but the children in their preschools were also able to choose a book to take home. On May 1, some of our Girl Scouts were able to participate in the book delivery to the Wild Plum Center, as seen in the photograph. The children were so excited to see all the wonderful books and our Girl Scouts were proud of their accomplishments and happy to be able to share their good fortune with the Wild Plum Center.
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