WESTBROOK – Westbrook Brownies Troop 574 and sister Girl Scout Troop 3038 came together on Monday to earn their inauguration badge and learn about Martin Luther King Jr. as part of the National Day of Service.
Twenty members of the Girl Scout and Brownie troops gathered to create a poster showing their dreams for the community’s future, which included things like recycling more, helping out the homeless and having more peace and love in their lives.
“We like to set an example of lifelong giving and doing,” said Girl Scout Troop Leader Jessica Halfacre.
Troop leaders worked with the United Way of Greater Portland to come up with the idea of having the girls trace their hands and write their dreams on the tracing before cutting them out and gluing them to a poster.
“My dream is to find a home for everyone. When I drive through Portland or wherever and I see homeless people it makes me think, ‘Why are people treated this way?’ Everyone should have a shelter,” said Maureen Grant, 11, a member of Troop 3038.
Fellow troop member Phoebe Webber, 10, wants to see more love being spread through the community through planting flowers.
“I want to make the world prettier like Martin Luther King JR. did. He had a great speech but he was assassinated by a guy named Ray. Ray was a bad guy. When you plant flowers you spread love and that’s a good thing,” Webber said.
The girls explained that King was an important person in history because he made the world a better place.
“He said black people and white people could be friends and he made it equal so they could go to school together,” said Lily Grant, 9.
After finishing their poster, the troops, who do projects together throughout the year, headed to the Westbrook Performing Arts Center to watch the presidential inauguration. Despite being between 7 and 12 years old, many of the girls remembered the first time President Barack Obama was sworn into office.
The “I have a Dream” poster will be passed between the United Way and the Westbrook Community Center, where the Girl Scouts do many of their community service projects.
Scouts, from left, Emily Blenk, Phoebe Webber, Savanna Jackson, and Lily Grant, help Maddison Boucher place cutouts of hands as part of a community service project Monday to earn a merit badge. Send questions/comments to the editors.
