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By Susan L. Sherwood/ Staff Writer
Thursday, May 5, 2005
Wayland fourth-grade Girl Scout Troops 3176 and 3163 and third-grade Brownie Troop 3152 participated in a service project at Horizons for Homeless Children, a nonprofit organization that improves the lives of homeless youngsters and their families.
The Wayland girls decorated picture frames for 126 homeless kids at Horizons Children's Centers to give to their moms or special friend on Mother's Day. The teachers at Horizons are helping each child make a drawing to put inside the frame.
"These children don't go to the mall to buy gifts," said Deb Gilmore, co-leader of Troop 3176, "and we want to make them and their moms smile."
According to Gilmore, both the scouts and their leaders were interested in incorporating a community service project into this year's program.
"We chose Horizons," she said, "because a couple of mothers of girls in our troop have done volunteer work for them in the past, and we knew it was an outstanding organization. We also thought that, aside from just being another arts and crafts project, this would be an opportunity to educate these Claypit Hill girls about the causes of homelessness in general and the issues surrounding it."
Horizons provides the nurturing and opportunities for early education that children need in order to learn and grow in healthy ways. To improve the lives of these youngsters over the long term, the organization also connects the parents with the tools to achieve social and economic self-sufficiency.
Horizons' two community children's centers provide full-time early care and education for homeless children and support services to their families, while the play space programs work across Massachusetts to build playrooms within shelters. In these ways, Horizons touches the lives of more than 1,000 homeless children every week.
On Tuesday, April 26, the 15 members of Troop 3176 visited the Horizons facility in Dorchester for an educational tour and to present their picture frames. The visit was a resounding success, said Colette O'Neill, Horizons' communications specialist. [continue]
"I was there merely to observe the interaction," she said, "and the whole event was really full of excitement. The kids were overjoyed. Whenever anyone comes to our centers, the children are ecstatic. But these visitors were 15 Girl Scouts who were full of life. The very emotionally triggering part of the visit was when the Wayland contingent presented the picture frames to our children. The kids were very, very excited at the prospect of giving them to their mothers. So it was an extremely special element."
For the girls from Wayland, too, the project was full of significance.
"I felt happy that I was giving them a present for their mothers," said Rose Cormier, 9, a third grader and a Brownie. "I felt good about helping them."
For her part, Cate Ellison, 9, a fourth-grade Girl Scout, said she enjoyed the arts and crafts aspect of the project as well as the fact that she was helping homeless children by making the picture frames.
"All they have to do is provide a picture for their mothers," she said.
"I think one of the most memorable things about our visit," said Sarah Gilmore, 10, a fourth-grade Girl Scout, "was to see that, even though the kids didn't have homes, they had a place to play and grow up and just be happy.
"I think they're just like us. The only difference is that they don't have homes," she said.
Horizon's O'Neill added, "We're always extremely excited when groups such as the Girl Scouts show an interest in us. Such interest and visits like the one we received from the Wayland troop are hugely advantageous to the families we serve as well as to our organization as a whole. And this group in particular showed a genuine interest not only in our programs, but in the kids they met on the day they came."
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Troop 3176 with pre-schoolers at an HHC Community Children's Center.
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