Girl Scouts make Little Library, Pantry at Middle Creek Presbyterian Church

SUBMITTED PHOTO The Gazette
Middle Creek Presbyterian Church on Montague Road recently created a Little Library and Pantry. Shown here, working on the project during Vacation Bible Camp.

Girl Scout from Troop 3010, Megan Bomgarden, Leanne Shrader, and Meegan Waddell, recently completed two projects to earn their Silver Awards. The Troop is based out of Middle Creek Presbyterian Church on Montague Road.

The girls presented their project and gave the following speeches about the process and their reasons for choosing it.

Leanne: This year we took on an assignment where we built a small library and pantry. This task was to help the community by allowing them to read a book for free and obtain non-perishable goods.

Our church, too, wanted to help because they needed a service project. So, this had to benefit our community in a caring way. We also decided to build a Little Free Library and a Little Free Pantry as our silver award, too. A silver award is the highest award a Girl Scout Cadet can receive, so we had to do something for the good of our community.

Megan:  When we took on this project, we knew it was going to take a lot of time and effort. The minimum number of hours a silver award must take is 50. This means that we were getting together as much as possible to put in a few hours of work each week to complete this task.

The first step in our goal was to get approved of where to put the library before anything else, and to even see if that’s what was the right thing to do. We presented our idea of a little free library to the sabbatical team of our church and they approved.

Our next step was raising money to get materials for our library and pantry. This was done with a quilt raffle, thanks to Karen Schandlemeyer, and the contribution of our church. After we gathered enough money, we purchased the kits to build a little free library and pantry. When they first arrived in the mail, we immediately got to work assembling the kits. With the help of some members of the church, we built it in a few days.

Meegan:  After it was built, it was time to paint it. First we put on two coats of primer. Then, each of us took a side of the pantry and library and painted it with our own style. With one final side left, we collaborated our ideas of a pantry and painted it on together. This process took about two months because we only painted when all of us were available.

Once it was all painted, we began to build the post it was mounted. We did this with the help of Dan Bomgarden who taught us how to cut and assemble the wood and how to mix the cement for securing the post. He let us use his table saw and other tools.

We can’t thank him enough for his help and patience. Some of us were pretty scared to use the saw. That same day, the mixed cement went into the holes where the library and pantry would be placed. Thank you to the trustees for digging the two foot deep holes.

We put the posts went into the ground with the cement. Before we could mount the library and pantry, we had to spray a few coats of fixative and clear coat spray. This was necessary to preserve our artwork.

Leanne: After all is said and done, we learned quite a lot from this project. We learned about time management, woodworking skills, how to mix cement and how to use a level. Overall, we knew that you can still have fun while getting what was needed done. This project was a very fun, learning experience for us, and we can’t wait for our next one.

We enjoyed working with everyone and learning new things every time we worked on this project. The little free library and pantry are sure to benefit the community. We thank everyone for the support you’ve given us. After the service, be sure to stop outside by the flagpole to check out the library and pantry. The books and items inside are free to all and you can donate items anytime.