Monroe-Woodbury Girl Scouts volunteer at area food pantry

On the last Sunday in October, Girl Scouts from Monroe-Woodbury Service Unit 223 and their families volunteered to help the Community Emergency Food Pantry build Thanksgiving distribution boxes for local families in need.

“The Girl Scouts help out in numerous ways throughout the course of the year,” said Bob Jankelunas, director of operations at the food pantry. “We do three major giveaways — Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter — so the families we are serving will get a full-course meal, soup to desert, at all three of those times. For example, on Dec. 2, a group of Girl Scouts will come in and pack boxes with all the dry goods, meaning a couple cans of green beans, a couple cans of another vegetable, they’ll get juice and a bunch of things packed into that box. So, the Girl Scouts will do all that packing, similar to what they just did for Thanksgiving. Many of them will also come in and help with distribution.”

Close to 30 girls from Monroe-Woodbury Girl Scout Unit Service 223 took part in the Thanksgiving box build, said Barbara Mallory, the service unit manager for the Monroe-Woodbury Girl Scouts.

“The box build event is open to all the troops, so I would refer to it as a Monroe-Woodbury Girl Scout activity,” Mallory said. We volunteer all year giving back to the community but there is always extra to do around the holidays. We usually have a great turnout of girls at each boxing event, so we get things done quickly. The girls will have also baked 100 pies for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. They do a tremendous job.”