INPERSON
Handing Out Happiness
WJH Girl Scout Troop focuses on Project SmiLES for South Hills Meals on Wheels clients.
BY W. B. FRESA
PHOTOS BY DARCY VERGALLITO
Members of Girl Scout Troop 54219 make holiday cards for Meals on Wheels recipients.
Today, most people would send a text or email if they were looking to brighten someone’ s day. It may even contain a smiley face emoji. But what passed for making someone feel special not so long ago came in the form of homemade cards. It may seem old-fashioned and maybe a little time-consuming, but for some folks in the South Hills, it’ s the cool breeze on a hot day they’ ve needed, and they have Girl Scout Ashley Werner and Troop Leader Darcy Vergallito to thank.
Earlier this year, several members of West Jefferson Hills Girl Scout Troop 54219 were preparing to earn their Silver Award and approached their troop leader for help.“ I told them to investigate some charities they found interesting and pick one they were passionate about,” said Vergallito.“ Ashley chose Meals on Wheels( MOW) and it has turned into a special project for a terrific community service.”
After meeting with Pam Mason, CEO, site coordinator and cook for South Park Meals on Wheels, which serves clients from South Park to Bethel Park and many points in between, Ashley, a freshman at Thomas Jefferson High School, soon realized many of the organization’ s clients frequently become lonely due to lack of nearby family and friends to visit or check on them. So for a Silver Award project, she chose to encourage people in her community to think about others and send happiness to them in the form of cards made from paper and crayons.
“ I decided to help Meals on Wheels because there were so many lonely people who have never received anything special,” explains Ashley.“ I wanted to make them happy because many of them do not have family or friends locally like others do.” She created the holiday card project called Project SmiLES( Sending my Love Every Season) to distribute to MOW clients on special holidays throughout 2016 and 2017, in hopes of improving the clients’ well-being.
“ Project SMiLES is a lesson in seeing what one small idea can turn into,” said Ashley.“ We went from talking about it at a coffee shop in February to handing out cards to actual clients in August. We hope to inspire others to do good and also believe in their ability to do good.”
The special holidays that Project SmiLES recognizes include National Watermelon Day, Teddy Bear Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’ s Day, Valentine’ s Day, St. Patrick’ s Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Flag Day and Fourth of July. It has also been able to celebrate birthdays for some MOW clients.
To ensure she had enough cards to serve all of MOW’ s clients, Ashley began by contacting local Girl Scout Service Units from the South Hills and surrounding communities and asked for their assistance with the project. The goal was to make enough cards for each client to receive one per month but a minimum of six to cover each of the major holidays recognized throughout the year.
However, she found that creating enough cards for a year for the 75 clients in the South Park MOW program is a daunting task. So she started a marketing campaign to get the word out about her project and enlisted as many volunteers as possible to meet her card-making goal.
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