Our Kids Can Wipe Out Poverty By 2020

Imagine a world where every child goes to bed with a full stomach, and wakes up knowing that they can look forward to an education and a roof over their head.

For many children today, that is just a dream.

Now, imagine that all of our children decided that it was wrong that some have so much, and some have so little. Next, imagine that these privileged children decided to do something about poverty in their community, and around the world.

You might think that one child can’t do much. But, you would be wrong. Just as one domino can tip over hundreds of dominoes, one child’s action can influence others, and so on, and so on.

The girls in our Girl Scout Service Unit have been discovering that there are many ways that they can help fight poverty in our community.

Discover

Some of our Girl Scouts start learning about hunger in our community when they volunteer at the Northeast Food Bank, often as young Brownies.

Many have helped collect food donations at school, or through neighborhood food drives.

However, the plight of the working poor in our community really hit home when the girls met Denise Dunham, founder of the Mt. Ida Community Food Pantry at a Hunger 101 Patch Program.

She described how she came to open the food pantry because she was feeding hungry kids on weekends who counted on school lunches for their daily meals. Girls, and adults, learned that rising food and fuel costs were forcing more and more working poor families to have to go without food.

Connect

In meeting with Ms. Dunham, participating in the Hunger 101 activities, and discussing the issue with their friends, many girls decided that they wanted to do something about this issue.

Many girls had been volunteering, and collecting food donations, for years. However, they wanted to do more.

Take Action

Our girls have taken on increasingly ambitious projects to help fight poverty:

• Every year, our troops help distribute goods at the Northeast Food Bank.
• Older Girl Scouts have helped out at a local soup kitchen.
• Several girls have volunteered at the Mt. Ida food pantry, helping to stock shelves, and hand it out to families.
• Many helped with a major move when it was necessary to shift supplies and furniture to accommodate the larger number of families depending on the food pantry.
• A couple of girls have gone beyond this to do even more to help the food pantry, and they are earning Bronze or Gold medals as a result.
• Building on previous projects, our Girl Scouts Service Unit devised a Making End Meet Mission Possible Project in which they collected books, school supplies, and birthday supplies for the working poor served by Unity House.

The amazing thing is that these are young girls who have already developed leadership skills to make a positive impact in their community. I can only imagine what each of them will accomplish in their lifetime, multiplied by their collective power.

Kids On Blog Action Day 2008:

Pictures On Poverty – Animoto Video blog post by 9-year-old Alex.

Blog Action Day – Poverty – Blog post by 12-year-old Kayla.

Poverty – Geekify, written by one of our Digital Native friends, joins the Blog Action Day discussion.

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This post is part of Blog Action Day 08 – Poverty