May 25, 2004

Girl Scout News

Girl Scout Troop 759: Tree watering project earns recognition from Our City Forest

Evergreen Girl Scout Troop 759 and the Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley won the “Helping Hands” category under “Youth Services” at an Our City Forest awards ceremony on May 7.

Our City Forest celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, commemorating 10 years of service planting 30,000 trees and mobilizing 100,000 community members into action.

To earn this honor, members of Girl Scout Troop 759—Kelly Angeloty, Courtney Chin, Stephanie Ho, Sarah Kahermanes, Abbey Nevoli and Elizabeth Schubert—took on the challenge of watering 56 newly planted trees at Groesbeck Park as part of an Our City Forest tree-watering program in the spring of 2002.

The first year they worked in two teams and ensured the trees were watered twice a week during the spring, summer and as needed in the fall. During 95-degree weather, the trees were watered three times a week. The girls also worked on maintaining water wells and soil erosion projects for the trees.

Christian Bonner, Our City Forest Arborist, was the troop’s advisor on this project.

The troop was one of four nominated in the “Helping Hands” category under the “Youth Services.” Other nominees included Boy Scouts of Santa Clara County, Sunnyhills Youth Association and Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley.

Girl Scout troop 871: Scouts donate food, work to outreach program

Girl Scout troop 871 donated cereal bars, Snickers and more than 100 homemade turkey sandwiches to the Saint Joseph Cathedral Office of Social Ministry.

The scouts brought bread from home, put on their gloves and went to work assembling the turkey sandwiches. This included placing the sandwiches in bags decorated by the girls with little pictures and words of encouragement like “Have a great day!” with a happy face.

The outreach program was very appreciative of the food and distributed the sandwiches promptly after Girl Scout parent volunteer Suzanne Dewosky delivered the sandwiches and snacks to the Office of Social Ministry staff. Dewosky helped organize this project with Girl Scout Troop 871 Leader Debbie McCloskey.

Evergreen Girl Scout volunteers, partners recognized

The 30th Annual Girl Scouts Recognition Banquet recently honored Girl Scout volunteers and community partners for their outstanding efforts. Both Robin Nevoli and Greer Ragsac, from Evergreen, were recognized for their 20 years in scouting, which includes girl and adult years.

The following national awards and approval were granted through the Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County Board of Directors.

Outstanding Leaders Awards
Janice Chanroo, Julie Meneses, Elisabeth Ramaeckers and Lisa Shank received Outstanding Leader awards, recognizing outstanding troop leadership qualities in the delivery of Girl Scout programs to girls.
Appreciation Pins

Pauline Benton and Karen van der Zweep received appreciation pins for their significant impact in one or more areas. Both Benton and van der Zweep are co-troop development managers for the Evergreen Valley Service Unit. They have been involved in service unit leadership roles for six years, working on girl and adult recruitment, orientation, training and application processing.

Volunteer Achievement Awards
Brenda Franca-Serpa and Cathy Allsup earned Volunteer Achievement awards for their involvement in a specific service unit assignments. Allsup serves as the Evergreen Valley Service Unit’s Registrar and processes the applications of almost 500 girls and 300-plus adult applications annually. Brenda processes and follow-ups on all adult volunteer screening applications.