By Ed Karvoski Jr., Contributing Writer
Marlborough – When the Marlborough Public Library presented a garden tour July 20, guests visited several spots including Jaworek Elementary School. That's where Girl Scout Troop 72843 members Ashley LeConti and Sara Peltier created a vegetable patch as their Silver Award project. The garden's harvest will be donated to the Marlborough Community Cupboard.
Their project was praised by the garden tour's coordinator, Anne Rouillard, reference librarian.
“It's such a great example of community support in action,” she commented.
The Silver Award is the highest national honor that a Girl Scout in grades six to eight can earn. Ashley and Sara are entering eighth grade at Whitcomb Middle School. The project must be done beyond the Girl Scout community, explained Bonny Parlee Goldberg, service unit coordinator.
“The girls are encouraged to look into the community and see where the needs are,” she said. “They'se hoping to get other volunteers interested in helping with this community garden for the food pantry and keep the project going from there. The volunteers don's necessarily need to be Girl Scouts.”
A parent of another Girl Scout troop member knew of the garden patch that was formerly utilized within the Jaworek curriculum. Ashley and Sara researched what types of vegetables would grow best at that particular space. Several local businesses contributed donations to their project.
Their troop had already offered support to the Marlborough Community Cupboard and they felt that this would be an ideal next step.
“It's one thing to give the food pantry canned goods, but it's amazing to be able to give them fresh vegetables with nutritional value,” Parlee Goldberg noted. “It will be a great feeling for the girls when they take that first harvest over to the food pantry.”
Ashley and Sara each need to complete 50 service hours in order to receive the Silver Award at a troop ceremony in the fall.
“I have a feeling these two girls are going to be putting in more than 50 hours each with the weeding, and the watering and all,” Parlee Goldberg said. “I's proud of them for taking on a really big project to help the food pantry. It's a big challenge and they'se stepping up to it.”
These Girl Scouts recently spoke about their Silver Award project at a meeting of the Marlborough Rotary Club.