BonnerSprings.com

Members of the Bonner Springs-Edwardsville Junior Girl Scout Troop 1134 are in the midst of a canned food drive to earn their Bronze Award, the highest award a Junior Girl Scout can earn.

But leader Kristen Christensen said the awards these girls receive from completing the required 15 hours of community service don’t only come in the form of a pin to be placed on their vest.

“The feelings they get when they give someone something and the happiness they see in that person’s eyes in return,” Christensen said of some other awards the girls might receive throughout the process of earning the award.

The drive kicked off April 9 and boxes, which the Girl Scouts hand-designed, were placed at several area businesses.

While decorating her box at a Girl Scout meeting the week before the drive began, Bonner Springs Elementary fifth-grader Jamie Cunningham talked about some of her favorite parts about being in the Junior Girl Scout troop.

“The crafts and all the stuff that we do,” Cunningham said.

She said what she liked most about the food drive project was “that we get to help the people in need of food.”

Some other badges the girls have worked on in relation to this project have been the Food, Fibers and Farming badge, where they learned about the origin of different foods through an event given at the Agricultural Hall of Fame. The Model Citizen Badge was one they earned through a visit from Mayor Clausie Smith, where he talked to them about the ins and outs of city government and the City Council. The Girl Scouts also volunteered at Harvesters Community Food Network in Kansas City, Mo., for an afternoon. Christensen said this was a good experience for the girls because it gave them first-hand knowledge of exactly what happens to food once it is donated.

“They were able to see what happens to the food they donate, and how it is packaged, stored and sent out to food pantries,” Christensen said.

The food drive will almost meet the requirements of the Bronze Award; the Girl Scouts will still have to complete one final project. They will help out at the Ladies Night Out event during the first week of May at the YMCA.

Nonperishable items can be donated through April 23. The food will then be donated to the Vaughn Trent Community Service Center. For more information, contact Christensen at (913) 568-5202.

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