Aimee Gawroniak, a member of Troop 1613, received her Junior Girl Scout Bronze award in June. She is a rising seventh grade student at Community Middle School.
To achieve the highest award given to a junior scout, Gawroniak came up with the idea of running a book drive for homeless children. She, her leader, and her mother Mona Gawroniak, did a little research and spoke to the Anchor House in Trenton about donating books.##M:[more]##
“Aimee suggested they donate to the teen shelter, thinking that teenagers in a homeless situation needed books more than most,” says Mona. “Anchor House said they did not have somewhere to hold the books so Aimee decided to build them a bookcase in addition to running the book drive.” Books were collected from area Girl Scout leaders as well as through drives at Community Middle School, High School South, and High School North.
Troop members helped paint the bookcase and she and her mother assembled it. “Aimee spent a good deal of time going through the books to make sure they were appropriate for the age level and situation,” says Mona. “Delivering the bookcase and books to Anchor house really gave Aimee an idea of what some children in a shelter situation have to deal with.”
“Aimee knows it made a real difference to a lot of kids that many people don’t think about,” she says. “It opened up conversations about important civic issues that most 11-year-olds do not think or care about.”
