Girl Scouts prove they’re more than cookie-sellers

Middletown troop delivers 70 Easter baskets for ill children in the hospital.

MIDDLETOWN — This time, they didn’t deliver cookies.

Instead, five members of Girl Scout Troop 41764 — mostly 11-year-old fifth-graders from Miller Ridge Elementary School — passed out something even sweeter.

For the last week, the girls collected donations from Meijer, Walmart and Kroger and put together 70 Easter baskets that they delivered to ill children Thursday afternoon at The Children’s Medical Center of Dayton.

The troop, in its third year, is scheduled to disband for various reasons, said Mae Collinsworth, a co-leader. She figured this was the perfect time for the girls to complete a community project.

“We wanted to go out with a bang,” she said as the girls prepared to carry the baskets to the van. “This is a great way for the girls to feel positive. You know, it’s not all about selling cookies.”

The girls — Allison Collins- worth, Madelaine Fisher, Faith Landis, Charlotte Plowman and Scarlett Tindell — delivered the baskets to the children’s hospital. Most of the baskets will be distributed on Easter, said Karen Muller, manager of the Child Life center at the hospital.

Muller said the baskets will allow the hospital to make the holiday “as normal as possible” for the children.

“If they were home,” she said, “they’d probably get baskets.”

Muller said the children and their parents were “very appreciative” of the baskets.

As you’d expect, the Girl Scouts said the gesture was just as rewarding to them.

Madelaine, 11, called filling the baskets “really fun” because she realized the impact they’d have on the children.

Faith added: “This is our way of making them feel better.”

Some days, all it takes is a Thin Mint cookie. On others, a stuffed animal and a chocolate bunny will do the trick.

Contact this columnist at (513) 705-2842 or rmccrabb@coxohio.com.

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