June 3, 2005

Evergreen Girl Scouts help assemble 10,000 Vials of L.I.F.E.

Girl Scouts from 15 troops in Evergreen’s Service Unit 2, members from Venture Crew 214, and AmeriCorps assembled 10,000 “Vials of L.I.F.E.”—Lifesaving Information For Emergencies—for the city of San Jose’s Fire Department.

Girl Scout Briana Trinh (upper left) poses with the Brownies who helped fill the Vials of L.I.F.E.

The fire department recently received a $10,000 grant from San Jose Councilmember Linda LeZotte’s office to benefit the health and welfare of San Jose residents. It decided to use the grant money to purchase vials that enable fire fighters and paramedics to quickly locate medical information for identification in an emergency crisis.

The plastic vial contains a medical information form to fill out, a magnet to be placed on the refrigerator door and the vial itself, which is then placed into the refrigerator with the medical information inside. This information is extremely helpful when someone is unconscious or unable to speak. The firefighters and paramedics are trained to automatically look for a vial in an emergency.

“When this project was first brought to my attention, I thought to myself, ‘My gosh, they want me to fill 10,000 plastic vials?’ But being a Girl Scout, in order to earn your Gold Award—the highest rank in Girl Scouts—you have many prerequisites,” said senior Girl Scout Briana Trinh.

“One is to earn 30 leadership hours,” she continued. “Leadership hours are hard to earn because it takes time to organize, put together, and most of all, lead a project. So when this project was offered to me, I was more than happy to lead it, because not only would I be working with the San Jose Fire Department, I would be helping to save 10,000 lives.”

To fill the 10,000 vials, Trinh set up 12 tables in groups of two. Each side of the table had an assembly line with all the materials needed to fill the vials. The volunteers were assigned a station where they completed a task, like placing a sticker on a vial. The vial would then move down the assembly line until it was placed into a box for completion.

“The hardest part of the project was folding the 20,000 papers,” said Trinh, who counted seven paper cuts after the arduous task.

“Having all the papers pre-folded before the big day helped a lot, which made the process of filling the 10,000 vials go much more faster,” she added. “Special thanks to Girl Scout Brownie Troop 007, Junior Troop 162, Cadette Troop 759 and Senior Troop 1115 for helping me fold the paper inserts.”

Trinh also acknowledged her mentor, Joy Weyer in the Community Outreach/Public Education Department for the San Jose Fire Department. “Joy was a huge help in guiding me to put this project together,” said Trinh.

“I’m in shock. I can’t believe we got it done in two hours,” said Weyer. “The ‘Vials of L.I.F.E.’ will be going to all 31 local fire stations in San Jose. The vials will then be distributed to local senior citizen groups at senior housing, apartment complexes and health fairs. These vials really do save lives.”

Trinh feels that overall the project went very well. “Of course every project is going to have its good and bad,” she admits. “I didn’t think I would actually be able to gather 100 volunteers and have them show up at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning to fill vials.” She too was surprised that they finished filling all the vials by 11 a.m. She expected to be working until 3 p.m. to finish everything up.

“I felt really good about doing this project because it benefited the community,” concluded Trinh. “But most of all, it amazes me how something so simple can save something so important as a life.”