Lemont Girl Scouts Collect Supplies for Homeless Pets

Lemont Girl Scout Junior Troop 75480 recently teamed up with Ruby Whiskers Animal Rescue to reach out to the Lemont community to support homeless pets. The girls, who are all students at Lemont’s River Valley Elementary School and Old Quarry Middle School, chose to conduct a pet supply drive as their capstone project to obtain their Girl Scout Bronze Award. The Bronze Award is the highest honor that a Girl Scout Junior can achieve and is awarded for planning a project that addresses a need that the Juniors have identified within their community.

Troop 75480 coordinated with Ruby Whiskers to identify what items were most needed at the moment by the rescue. The girls then developed fliers that were displayed at more than 50 businesses throughout Lemont asking for donations to be dropped off at various locations. In addition to the flier displays, Lemont-Bromberek School District offered the Troop space in their weekly newsletters to advertise the pet supply drive. The Lemont Library, Lemont Park District CORE, and School District 113A all generously agreed to act as drop off locations.

The Juniors, with the help of their parents, also conducted a strong social media marketing campaign to build support for the project. Through the use of Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms, the girls were able to direct donors to an Amazon Wish List where individuals could purchase pet supplies and have them delivered directly to the Troop.

The final phase of the supply drive was the delivery of 1,000 paper bags, donated by the Homer Glen Meijer store, to homes throughout Lemont with a flier attached explaining the purpose of the supply drive and requesting that residents fill the bag and leave it on their front porch. The girls then returned a week later and collected any supplies that were left out.

The supply drive was conducted from April 1st to April 30th. In that time, Troop 75480 collected over 1,300 pet supply items that will be dropped off with Ruby Whiskers to help them in their mission of rescuing, vetting, and rehoming animals from shelters and other abandoned situations.

The leaders and Scouts of Troop 75480 would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the community of Lemont for their overwhelming generosity in supporting homeless pets. Without each of you, our project would never have achieved this level of success.

(Junior Scouts and Leaders Pictured Left to Right: Sareen Sharma, Tesla Murphy, Audrey Briski, Jayna Huff, Alexandria Biedess, Melissa Huff, Emily Blaszczyk, Brooklyn Loos, Kaylie O'Connor, Eleanor Cunningham, Alisa Biedess; Front Row: Miranda the not-so-homeless Yellow Lab; Junior Scouts Not Pictured: Anna Carney, Violetta Czaja, London Dellamano, Zoey Galos, Maddie Maloney, Jennah Naguib, Olivia Urnikis)