Girl Scout collects sports equipment for needy athletes

Nicole Arsenis sits among some of the athletic equipment she has collected in conjunction with her Girl Scouts Gold Award Project. PHOTO/KEN POWERS Westborough - The idea for her Girl Scouts Gold Award Project came to Nicole Arsenis as she was standing knee-deep in her brothers' used athletic equipment in a utility closet in the family's Adams Street home.

"My brothers [Alex, 15, and Chris, 13] are always trying diff erent sports," Nicole said. "One season it will be soccer, the next it will be baseball, after that basketball, after that something else. One day I was looking around at all the equipment and I thought it was a shame that all that stuff , barely used, was going to waste."

In January, Nicole, a rising senior at Westborough High School (WHS), decided to do something about that and launched her project, which is to collect new and gently-used sports equipment, which will be donated to the Westborough Recreation Department and distributed to needy families and athletes.

Nicole, 17, held the first of what she hopes to be monthly drop-off sessions June 14 at WHS and received enough equipment to fill several big plastic bins. Equipment donated included: ice skates; roller blades; skis and ski poles; baseball and softball equipment, including gloves, balls and bats; golf clubs; footballs; and cleats.

In between the monthly drop-off dates at WHS, residents will be able to drop off sports equipment at the town Recreation Department office, located in Town Hall, as there will be a collection bin.

Nicole said her plan, when the program is up and running and the equipment has been inventoried, is to have the Recreation Department director and the Youth and Family Services director send her e-mail when they need equipment and arrange to have it picked up. Nicole said she also plans to meet with the WHS coaches before each season to let them know that if they have any excess equipment, they can donate it to her project.

The Girl Scouts' Gold Award is the organization's most prestigious honor, comparable to the Eagle Scout Award in Boy Scouts. Only 3 percent of Girls Scouts eligible to receive the Gold Award do so. It requires a community-service project of at least 65 hours of work and will continue after the initial phase of the project is completed, which Nicole hopes will be in the spring of 2009.

Nicole, who is a member of Judith Tully's Girl Scouts Troop 513 in Westborough, said interest in her project has been great, with neighbors putting up flyers at their places of work. Nicole has been in Girl Scouts for 12 years, becoming a Daisy when she was 5 years old.

Having competed in field hockey and golf for the Rangers the last three years, Nicole has first-hand knowledge about used sports equipment. In the fall she will serve as one of the field hockey team's captains.

Nicole is also a member of the WHS National Honor Society, as well as the school's Tri-M Music Honor Society for her excellence playing the violin. She is the president of her class, and was last year as well.

As a member of the youth group at the Evangelical Congregational Church in town, Nicole is spending June 21 through 28 in Youngstown, Ohio, where she will help renovate houses. In previous summers, the youth group has done house renovations in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Nicole is considering a career in the engineering field, possibly as a biomedical engineer. She is looking at attending the University of New Hampshire, Boston College, Boston University or UMass when her WHS career comes to a close.

Those interested in donating new or gently-used equipment and those with additional questions can contact Nicole at narsenis@yahoo.com.