SERVING SOUP, SERVING LOVE
GS TROOP 81555 BRONZE AWARD
LEADERS LIZ MAZZOLA, MARIA WALSH, SUSAN WELSH

GS Troop 81555 has spent the last year working on their Bronze Award with Saint Mary's Soup Kitchen in Plainfield New Jersey. In the fall of 2010, as we worked on some badges and searched for a Service Project, we decided to put our efforts towards the Soup Kitchen. We worked on a number of patches that helped us learn about the communities in which we live. As we worked on planning our Bronze Award activities, we also worked on The Agent of Change Journey, which paralleled our work. We learned about the Power of One, Team and Community.

We learned about some of the needs in the community and learned of people and resources that are available to assist. We have spent the year helping to make the Soup Kitchen a better place along with our families, fellow Girl Scouts, older Girl Scouts and other volunteers at the Soup Kitchen. We were able to meet with one of the original founders of the Soup Kitchen, who provided suggestions and helped us identify some of the things that would help the Soup Kitchen. We were able to collect needed items to assist the attendees, such as toiletries, socks, gloves, hats, warm clothing. We were also able to help provide them with other simple pleasures, such as working with other Girls Scouts, younger and older making fall centerpieces, decorating placemats to make them more festive, and making candy “poppers” in red and green paper for an extra holiday treat. We have all worked at the Soup Kitchen and have been able to experience both the needs of people who may be less fortunate than we are and also experience their gratitude.

There has been nothing but positive feedback from our endeavors. The Soup Kitchen continues to have record numbers of attendees and many of the girls have expressed an interest in continuing volunteer work there. It has been a learning experience for us to see how people, who in essence are our neighbors, may have so much less than we have. We plan to continue our service work next year with the Soup Kitchen through volunteerism, crafts, and collections of needed items to continue to make the Soup Kitchen a better place by serving soup, serving love.

Netbooks in the Classroom

In February SFCS introduced the HP Mini 100e Netbook designed just for education. This netbook weighs approximately 3 lbs., features a 92% full-size, spill-resistant keyboard and touchpad as well as a convenient built-in handle and a long-life battery. They are housed in two rolling carts with 30 netbooks per cart.

Working closely with their teachers our students have been able to do the following:

• access the Internet wirelessly to connect to their textbook Web sites for review and reinforcement of concepts
• perform research for PowerPoint presentations and reports
• gain access to online subscriptions that deliver curriculum content through interactive fun activities.

This program has been introduced to second, third, and fourth grades. For the past five years our middle school students have been using more powerful laptops in their classrooms.

SFCS receives commendations from Middle States Association

Annual Integrated Pest Management Notice for 2010 - 2011 now available