Hopedale Girl Scouts Earn Silver Award for The Sensational Kids Project

Abby Kelly, Alivia Carlin and Amanda Gross from Troop #30984 have been busy working toward their Silver Award. Abby and Amanda have been Girl Scouts for 9 years and Alivia for 7 years. Their project is called “The Sensational Kids Project.” They worked with Alysia Butler and Tina Perriello from the Senseability Gym to make Sensory friendly items to create a Sensational kids kit.
Senseability Gym is a nonprofit corporation serving special needs children in the greater Hopedale, Massachusetts area. Their mission is to provide a parent-led sensory gym, giving children with special needs a safe, fun, indoor area where they can play and accommodate their sensory needs.
The girls spent over 55 hours working on this project.  They raised money for the supplies to make the kits by selling “I-Spy” bottles at Day in the Park at the Senseability Gym tent. They also had Sensory friendly games to play with kids at the table.  
The Sensational kids kit consists of homemade “I-Spy” bottles, weighted lap pads, and stretch bands that the girls, with the help of Peggy Silva, learned to sew in order to make. The Scouts also put together a bookshelf to make a lending library with books and resources for the gym to lend out to families to try the products before investing in them.  They created a sign-out sheet log for the books and kits so the library and kits stay sustainable.  Kits include washing instructions on their inside lids, so items can be cleaned before returned. The girls also created a website of their Award-winning project at https://kellya21.wixsite.com/senationalkidsgs where parents can go and view the project and instructions on how to make their own Sensational Kids kits.
Abby, Alivia and Amanda worked hard on budgeting (learning to use coupons), organization, time management, and using/following all the laws of the Girl Scouts.  The last law states to “Make the World a Better Place,” and they sure did!
They will be presenting the project and receiving their award in Worcester on June 22 at Mechanics Hall.