NAHANT — Dozens of girls in Nahant are scouting out a way to help others.
Third and fifth graders in Girl Scout Troops 68002 and 69002 gathered travel-size toiletries and packaged them into kits on Tuesday afternoon. The kits, filled with shampoo, conditioner, floss, wipes, soap, razors, Q-tips, toothbrushes, and other necessities, will be distributed by the girls to the homeless in Lynn next month.
More than 100 kits will be given to The Bridge House, a family shelter in Lynn run by the Lynn Shelter Association and funded by the state Department of Housing and Community Development.
“You have to have a child to be placed at The Bridge House,” said troop leader Roxanne Schena. “That’s why we chose it. The girls will get a tour and have a better understanding of how privileged they are. The older girls went last year, and they left humbled. These kids don’t have an idea yet. It really reaches home, being a mom.”
Schena’s daughter Ella, a fifth grader, visited the shelter last year and said she was surprised to see locks on the small refrigerators in each room, up to seven children sharing a room with their parents, and the amount of empty space on the bookshelves.
“There’s basically nothing — the fridges have locks so no one can steal their food and only like one snack in them to share,” said Ella. “I thought ‘I have to do something.’ I have a lot of books because I like to read, so I donated 20 of them.”
In the weeks leading up to the assembly day, the scouts sought toiletry donations from their classmates. They expected to package about 50 bags, but quickly put together more than double their goal.
They also collected a few hundred pairs of socks, which will be donated to My Brother’s Table on the same day. My Brother’s Table is the largest soup kitchen on the North Shore and is located in Lynn.
“Most people think everybody has money but a lot of people don’t and they need this,” said Heather Doucette, a fifth grader. “They don’t have these things.”
