By Dakota Antelman, Contributing Writer
Marlborough – Almost a dozen senior citizens and well over 20 local Girl Scouts congregated in the auditorium of the Marlborough Housing Authority building Dec. 6 for the group’s first arts and crafts night.
Members of Girl Scout troop 72840 of Marlborough took the lead in organizing the event, which lasted just over an hour and invited community members to decorate clear ornaments and foam sticker snowmen. Troop leaders Jagruti Seemungal and Kristen Livoti reached out to the Marlborough Senior Center in particular to invite its members to the event.
“This is just an activity that the girls really wanted to do,” Seemungal said. “They love working with the community. They love working with seniors. They love just getting in there and helping.”
The troop has hosted holiday events in the past, even once partnering with the senior center for a caroling night. This was, however, the first time they had hosted an arts and crafts night for the holidays.
Throughout the event, Girl Scouts from troop 72840 and troop 78139, a younger group, sat alongside the seniors who attended and either helped them work on their crafts or talked to them while they worked.
“The troop leaders are hands-off and they’re helping everybody,” Seemungal said. “This is what our cadets do. [This is] what the Girl Scouts do for the community.”
Ginger Cutting, 81, of Marlborough was one of the seniors who attended. She has been going to the senior center in Marlborough for 18 years and said she appreciated the Girl Scouts organizing the event.
“It’s good to have it at night because there’s nothing to do at night,” she said. “At 4 p.m., the [senior] center closes up. After that, there isn’t much we can do so it’s good to have this.”
Cutting said she hopes the Girl Scouts continue the event next year. Seemungal and Livoti agreed.
“It’s a chance for them to have multigenerational experiences,” Livoti said. “I know that my daughter is an only child and she’s not close to her grandparents because they live far away so she really doesn’t have an older role model. So this is good for her.”