Holmdel Girl Scouts Get a Boost from Wells Fargo to Partner with the Community

Imagine Holmdel Girl Scout Troop 120’s delight when we were selected by Susan DeLeon, Wells Fargo Branch Manager, to receive a Wells Fargo Community Partner grant! With our goal to “Pay it Forward,” our troop developed a plan and budget to make a difference in our community through five projects.

Our first project allowed us to personally touch a family, “adopting” them for the holidays. Mary Ann Reese, Matawan-Aberdeen School District nurse who facilitated the “Troop 120 elves,” told us, “one local family will certainly have a joyous and wonderful holiday.” Next, we combed their “wish list” and purchased First Aid kits and art supplies for 180 Turning Lives Around, a private nonprofit dedicated to ending domestic and sexual violence in our community.

As younger scouts, work with Amanda’s Easel Creative Arts Therapy Program touched us more deeply than any other project; this program helps children heal from the effects of domestic violence by encouraging them to express and understand their feelings and fears in a safe and nurturing environment through various forms of art. Similarly, shaken by the need for children’s socks and underwear, we gladly contributed to a community drive sponsored by the Church of St. Anselm, Wayside, NJ.

Turning our attention to the environment, to enhance the community, we planted a flower garden marking the entrance to Bayonet Farm, a beautiful township-owned farm featuring hiking trails and historic buildings and the site of Earth Day and Music & Arts Festivals as well as the focus of many scout projects and outings.

As our final touch, we purchased reusable water bottles to help support a water purification project sponsored by the Holmdel High School Eco Club that filters drinking water using a low-energy system—and encourages students to limit waste from 1-time use water bottles.

To spread our environmentally-conscious message, we donated these water bottles to the Backpack Buddies program run by Temple Shalom of Aberdeen; each week, on Friday, congregants deliver backpacks filled with food to school children in the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District to children who receive lunch under Title 1 on school days but don’t have sufficient food on weekends.

Troop 120 formed when the girls were Daisy Scouts in kindergarten and has done many community projects over the years. We collected ‘baby bundles’ for single mothers and toiletries for the homeless, made dozens of sandwiches for the community Bridges program, planted flowers at Spring House, a halfway house for women, and collected and stocked food for the Calico Cat Food pantry. Every year, our troop donates dozens of Gift of Caring Girl Scout cookies to local food pantries. Our troop’s latest projects have been literacy-focused and included reading in local grammar school classrooms, volunteering in the township library, and helping to make the Kenilworth Middle/High School library a more effective learning and research environment.

This grant enabled Troop 120 to leverage our scouting values and social responsibility to a new level and reach out personally to make a difference in our community. Thank you to Wells Fargo Bank for their generosity and for giving us this opportunity in our final year as Girl Scouts!

For more information about Girl Scouting in Holmdel, contact Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore at 732-938-5454.