Girl Scouts Help Local Alzheimer’s Patients
By Kristin Coulter, Troop 3573 Leader
Park Hill Girl Scout Troop 3573 chose to help Alzheimer’s patients to earn their Bronze Award. The Bronze Award is the highest award Junior Girl Scouts, 4th and 5th graders, can earn. They selected Alzheimer’s patients as their focus because several of the girls had a personal experience with the disease as someone in their family or a family friend had Alzheimer’s.
Forest Street Compassionate Care Center, at 3345 Forest Street, welcomed the 14 troop members’ frequent visits. When the scouts first planned their project they thought perhaps they could make scrapbooks for the residents as a way to preserve slipping memories. However when they visited the Forest Street Compassionate Care they noticed that the patients were cold. Even though the temperature in the Center felt too warm to the girls, the residents were bundled in sweaters and coats. The girls learned that older people feel cold easily because they often have little body fat or take medications that can lower their body temperature.
Armed with the facts, the girls set to work to hand make lap blankets. They made 35! They visited the Center as often as they could. They also brought cookies, sang songs and, most importantly, made friends. The troop was able to complete this project through teamwork, using their cookie money and donations. As one scout put it “I was scared at first to talk to people that I didn’t know but I discovered I have the power to make people smile!”
To view their project video, visit youtube.com/watch?v=06Z5xoEAnOM