Christine Adams and McKenna Samson of Girl Scout Cadet troop №22429 in Mt. Laurel, collected nearly 1,100 books for their Girl Scout Silver Award Project entitled “Project Read to Me.” The book drive took place to benefit the BookMates organization, a literacy program in South Jersey.
The books were distributed to the Veteran’s Memorial Family School in Camden and some books were donated to the Mt. Laurel Library.
The project took months of planning and involved coordination as well as communication with local schools and community organizations. Some of the steps of the project included distributing flyers, setting up collection sites, pickup and sorting of books and delivery of the books to the receiving school.
The girls carefully recorded the hours spent on the project and were in communication with many school and township personnel.
The books were delivered to the Veterans Memorial Family School on June 3, during a Harrington Middle School visit to the school.
“This is the most beautiful book I’ve ever seen!” a student exclaimed as she hugged her brand new book. The two girls distributed the books in the school gym to the eager students.
The project was a learning experience for the girls and a great community service opportunity.