Local Girl Scouts Collect Food and Backpacks for Their Homeless Peers

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Sandy Meindersma, GoLocalWorcester Reporter

About 50 Central Massachusetts Girl Scouts answered the call when learning of their homeless peers in Worcester. After finding out that Sullivan Middle School has 122 homeless students, these young ladies got together and found a way to help.

As GoLocalWorcester previously reported, 2565 students in the Worcester Public Schools are homeless, with 122 at Sullivan Middle School alone. With more than a tenth of the city’s 24,000 students classified as homeless, the issue is too large to ignore.

While there is a coordinated effort by Worcester Public Schools to mitigate the effect of homelessness, staff at several schools are taking matters into their own hands.

South High & Sullivan Middle Schools

Although the schools serve breakfast and lunch, there is no plan to provide dinner or meals on weekends, leaving children hungry for too long.

As previously reported by GoLocalWorcester, South High Principal Maureen Binienda started a food pantry when she saw that one of her “A” students’ recent homelessness was negatively affecting his grades. The pantry is stocked with a variety of foods and distributed in backpacks to prevent any stigma for students.

At Sullivan Middle School, groceries are also sent home in backpacks with students who request assistance.

“They self-identify, for the most part,” Susan Rulnick, the school based health center manager, said.

Rulnick was quick to say that school secretary Melanie Curran and nurse practitioner Leslie Holland were the ones who have made the program so successful.

“It started last year, and then this year they have totally renovated it,” Rulnick said. “And we’re getting support from all over, including WINGS (Women’s Initiative Next Generation), the Junior League of Worcester, and of course, our staff.”

Girl Scouts Take Action

Unnerved when she learned that kids her own age could be homeless, ninth-grader Rachel DeAngelis spearheaded a collection drive that involved her Girl Scout troop, along with other troops from West Boylston, Boylston and Berlin.

“It was surprising how many homeless kids there are,” Rachel said. “When I talked about it with my troop, we were all shocked and upset.”

Girl Scouts Gabby Hamel and Hannah Goodale deliver food and backpacks for homeless students to Sullivan Middle School's Melanie Curran

Rachel and her troop sponsored a food and backpack drive, asking other scouts to donate food items and gently used backpacks.

They requested easy to make or ready to eat items such as cereal, pasta and sauce, and macaroni and cheese so that the recipients could prepare them with little or no supervision.

“We put boxes up in various places, and a couple of our parents took boxes to their work,” Rachel said.

After a two week collection period, the troop collected 485 food items and 36 backpacks, which were delivered to Melanie Curran at Sullivan Middle School. Additional backpacks were requested, since the original backpacks don't always make it back to school to be refilled.

Troop Leader Hilary Laraba said that this week was chosen for delivery because with April vacation next week, a greater than usual need for food is expected.

“We wanted to be sure that they had extra food, since April vacation is next week, and they will need to have extra large backpacks,” Laraba said.

For Rachel and her troop, it was an eye-opening experience.

We helped people that really needed it,” Rachel said. “And we learned that the homeless can be anyone, even someone close to where we are.”