Monroe. Girl Scout Silver Award project results Pine Tree playground enhancements

When contemplating their Girl Scout Silver Award Project, Monroe-Woodbury High School freshmen Marisa Ely, Jillian Meyers and Emily Zrelak reflected on what they love most about being Girl Scouts: helping the community in a positive way, developing friendships and learning lifelong skills.

The three Cadettes, who have been members of Troop 432 together since kindergarten, knew that finding a meaningful project and raising necessary funds during a pandemic would be a challenge, but there was no stopping them once they honed in on the Pine Tree project.

The girls aimed to create playground enhancements and provide new options for students to exercise. Their plan incorporated several COVID-19 elements, included a variety of non-touch activities, two square game areas, as well as a large, colorful map of the United States.

The interactive map is designed to make learning more fun for teachers and students and the exercises are inclusive and provide socially distant activities.

“Our favorite part about the project was working together as a team, and because we all love painting, it was a fun and enjoyable task,” the young women said. “We hope that this project will allow students to be more active and participate in socially distant activities. The United States map will give students the chance to interact and strengthen what they are already learning in the classroom. We are so happy that we were able to help the students and provide them with a new addition to the playground.

“We would like to thank Mr. Guidice, Mr. Martin, and the custodial staff at Pine Tree for helping us,” they added. “We also want to thank Ms. Regan, Smith Clove assistant principal, for letting us borrow some of her stencils for our project, and our parents for their support and help throughout the entire project.”

Pine Tree Elementary Principal Bryan Giudice offered his thanks:

“The Pine Tree students have enjoyed the newly painted individual activities during mask breaks, recess and instructional time. The project was very timely as teachers and recess monitors were looking for socially distancing interactive activities. Thank you to Jillian, Marisa, and Emily for their hard work and please know how much our Pine Tree students are enjoying the enhanced playground.”