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By Robert Sullivan

CLEMMONS — The girls of Girl Scout Troop 10348 have had an exciting first year, making stops at the mayor’s office, the fire department and the Clemmons Food Pantry. As part of those efforts, the troop also collected donations and gave away hundreds of pounds of cookies and other foods to the pantry.

“We’ve been really trying to teach them about community, giving back and what it means to be a Clemmons resident,” said Troop Leader Ashley Marie Cranford.

The troop is composed of 10 kindergarten- and first grade-aged girls, and meets and is sponsored by Tanglewood Stables. Cranford said that most of the girls are from Clemmons, and the leaders were looking for ways to give back to the community when they came up with the food drive.

This past fall, the troop held their first food drive and ended up donating just shy of 100 pounds of food, said Cranford. When Girl Scout cookie season rolled around, the troop, which is still in its first year of existence, decided to continue their efforts.

“In spring we have our booths and we set up at the Walmart and at the Lowes Foods. We put those out and said ‘hey, anyone who doesn’t want cookies for themselves can buy them for the food pantry.’ The community really responded to that,” said Cranford.

Then, Cranford and the other troop leaders asked the girls to donate portions of their cookie sales as well in an effort to “teach the girls about putting the skin in the games themselves.”

“They really liked it, they had a lot of pride. Girls, little kids get told they aren’t that important or they can’t do a lot and they feel very dependent. So we tried to really press on them that this is really theirs,” said Cranford.

The spring drive resulted in 241 pounds worth of Girl Scout cookies, or approximately 500 boxes, being donated to the food pantry, said Cranford, bringing their total donations to over 300 pounds of food. Once that food was all rounded up, the Girl Scouts took it to the pantry and got to meet the workers and see some of the operations, said Cranford.

“Every booth we collected a case or two and every week we collected another case or two and when everybody brings in a bag or two of food, it adds up. Letting the girls see that aggregate and how much difference they made was great,” said Cranford.

As part of their recent activities, the troop also met with Clemmons Mayor Mike Rogers, toured village hall and even had a mock town hall meeting discussing ideas to bring new businesses to town, said Cranford. Afterwards, the girls left a case of cookies with the mayor as a thank you and half a dozen cases with the fire department.

“One of the good things about the scouts is it’s a well-rounded education about how to be a good citizen. Clemmons makes that easy, there’s a lot of great organization that make it possible,” said Cranford.