DeKalb Girl Scout Troop’s Bronze Award service project benefits library youth

DeKALB – Ten-year-old Addi Wojda of DeKalb says she never could have imagined building a bookshelf until it became a reality recently as part of a service project benefitting her local library through Girl Scout Troop 466.

Wojda completed the project – meant to aid the troop’s pursuits of achieving a Bronze Award – with the help of five other students from St. Mary School and members of her troop. The Bronze Award is the highest award a Girl Scout Junior can achieve, akin to a Silver or Gold Award earned at a later age for high school-aged scouts.

For their service project, the group worked closely with Sylvia Christensen, the leader of Girl Scout Troop 466, to construct what they call a, “Guardian and Me Area,” which members described as a space equipped with bookshelf containing toys and games for young children and their parents to play with at the library.

Wojda said her favorite part of the service project was likely using the tools. She said it was “probably getting to drill the boards in” for the bookshelf.

“It was just pretty fun to drill it in,” Wojda said.

Troop 466 members who worked on the project included Eva Mangino, Lily Mangino, Cecilia Moore, Makenzie Sipp, Jalynn Williams and Addison Wojda. All the girls are Junior-level Girl Scouts in fourth and fifth grades at St. Mary School in DeKalb

Christensen said the idea behind the girl scout troop’s service project has always struck a chord with her as she frequents the library with her own daughter.

“Hopefully, if it works as intended, the benefit is to make moms and preschoolers something that they can do with their kid in the library because I feel like most of the stuff is designed for the kid to play by themself or with other kids,” Christensen said. “As a mom, usually you just see the moms on their phone or talking to other moms. This is something if there aren’t any other kids here, something you can engage them with, something you can do with them.”

The Girl Scout troop has been working on its service project off and on again since August 2022.

Originally, the group pitched the library the idea of a space for toys and games which evolved into a bookshelf build. The girls held a toy drive to collect items for the space, made signs and worked with mentors Jason Moore and Matt Mangino to build the bookshelf, Christensen said.

Lily Mangino, 11, of Sycamore, said she took away a lot from the experience of working with the library’s librarians to make the project possible.

“When we were discussing about the shelf, there was a lot of back and forth on deciding what we had to do,” Mangino said. “We also had the option to paint it or just put a clear coat.”

The Girl Scout troop intends to return to the library next month to assess if anything is missing or lost from the Guardian and Me Area and if it makes sense to continue using the shelf for toys and games as opposed to books.

Christensen said she likes how involved the group has been with their service project.

“I think we’re all really excited,” Christensen said. “Hopefully, they’ll certify it and it’ll be a Bronze Award.”