Parsippany Teen's Summer Provides Service, Safety For Others

Jacqueline Smith may only be 15, but her summer break was likely more productive – and life-saving – than any of her peers’.

Smith, of Parsippany, put together two special events at Central Middle School during her summer break as part of the Parsippany Adult and Community Education’s “Wide World of Summer” program.

The program is an eight-week camp filled with outdoor sports and indoor activities with educational enrichment and field trips. Smith is part of the counselor-in-training program.

Smith’s camper education program included service dog presentations from the Morris County Sheriff’s Office and Federal Bureau of Investigations Bomb Detection K-9 units, and was accompanied by a pet food and cleaning supplies donation drive for the Eleventh Hour Rescue organization based in Randolph.

Smith didn’t stop there, however. Her second program of the summer raised money for the United Nations’ Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign, which provides long-lasting, insecticide-treated anti-mosquito nets for families in Africa.

The fundraiser included a soccer goal shootout, basketball shooting contests and a collection jug for spare change. The end result was a swish: $630 raised to provide 63 nets for African families to help stop the spread of malaria.