Girl Scouts Break Out Power Tools To Inspire Reading

Grace FisherPoff uses a power saw under close supervision.
Grace FisherPoff uses a power saw under close supervision.

Canned food drives. Soup drives. Blanket drives. Clothes drives. Even a towel and pet food drive for a local vet. Girl Scout troops all over the nation help in every way they can. But a local Roanoke Junior Girl Scout troop, Troop 1180, took the help to the next step.

The nine ten-year-old scouts needed a sustainable project and at least twenty hours of work in order to reach the Girl Scout Bronze Award, the highest award for a Junior Girl Scout. After brainstorming a variety of projects, the girls voted to build bookcases for the Rescue Mission.

They did not build simple do-it-yourself bookcases from the store, however. These girls rolled up their sleeves and made the bookshelves from scratch with their own hands.

Working three hours at a time on Saturday mornings, the girls pulled together the materials and labor to build five bookcases to fill up a wall at the Rescue Mission. They did the measuring, the planning and the building itself. Every girl participated using a variety of tools to construct the shelving units.

The girls “measured twice and cut once,” drove the nails in with a nail gun, sanded the edges with a power sander and leveled out the shelves. They even used a table saw under close supervision.

The troop divided into three groups, each with an adult supervisor, and over the course of the last few months spent several mornings a week working on the project. For the last couple of Saturdays, the girls returned home with white paint all over their knees, elbows, noses, and cheeks. But once the shelves were built, the project wasn’t finished.

Each girl scout of Troop 1180 then executed a personal book drive to stock the shelves. The Rescue Mission not only received new bookcases, but ones filled with all kinds of good reads for children.

Michelle FisherPoff, the troop leader, scout parent, and one of the supervisors of the project, stated that its purpose was not only to achieve the Bronze Award, but also to help foster a love for reading. “We hope to encourage the kids to find a love for reading and to get their kids to love reading and so on,” FisherPoff said. Inspiring a love of reading for the children who stay at the Rescue Mission helped guide the troop in selecting the project they would complete to reach the Bronze Award.

These capable girls are not afraid to break a sweat and are looking forward to helping out the community with other projects in the future.

 By Jessica A. Roberts

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