Girl Scouts of Central Maryland has awarded Bel Air residents and scouts Grace Boseck and Maureen McMennamin the Girl Scout Silver Award, the highest award a Girl Scout Cadette can earn. The award represents a girl’s accomplishment in Girl Scouting and her community as she grows and works to improve her life and the lives of others.
Grace and Maureen’s project focused on raising awareness of homelessness in Harford County. They researched the causes of homelessness and educated people in their school and community about those causes and how some may not even realize that others are homeless or struggling financially. They also worked to bring awareness of several organizations that can help those in need and focused specifically Found in Faith Ministries and Anna’s House.
At the start of the program, the girls called both organizations to talk to them about how the girls might help in their work. Maureen and Grace visited the Found in Faith Ministries’ showroom and met with volunteers to learn more about their Fresh Start Furniture Program.
As the program gathered momentum, they got Southampton Middle School involved with the Student Government Association, adopting this as a project to collected cleaning supplies for the organizations.
As part of their project, Grace and Maureen made a YouTube video to share information on homelessness in Harford County and organizations that can help.
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Grace and Maureen also conducted a reverse garage sale to solicit furniture and household goods to supply to these organizations. At this event, they shared the QR code to their video. In one morning, they collected enough to fill a U-Haul truck, an SUV, a van, and a car.
Grace and Maureen made 25 special kits to give to people in need of furnishings for their new housing. The kits were laundry baskets filled with cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and paper towels, as well as picture frames featuring inspirational messages that the girls painted by hand.
“Even though it doesn’t look like it, there is a lot of homelessness in Harford County,” Maureen said. “I was shocked to find out that in only one night 220 homeless individuals were counted. It was heartbreaking to know that 31% if the homeless population in Harford County was under the age of 17.”
“A huge factor in our project was to educate people on the idea that homelessness isn’t just in big cities,” Grace added. “I’d like to share that I realized through the project that anybody can help out with this conflict, no matter the age.”
By earning the Girl Scout Silver Award, Grace and Maureen have demonstrated their leadership skills and commitment, with each spending over 50 hours on the project.
“I’m so proud of these girls for thinking about how they can help others in their community, especially during this pandemic,” said troop leader Lynne McMennamin, who is Maureen’s mother. “They took initiative to reach out to organizations to determine how they could help and really put a lot of heart and hard work into their project.”