Tree Planting in Coney Island

This past Saturday, members of our troop met in Coney Island to plant trees with New York Restoration Project and Million Trees NY. These were planted on NYC Housing Authority property to help replace trees that died as a result of super storm Sandy.

We split into groups with approximately 2 girls in each to plant trees. Our group leader demonstrated how to measure the hole to make sure it's the right depth, packing the soil back in, and building a "donut" around the tree to collect rainwater. The trees were much bigger than the seedlings we planted last year, so it was a lot more physical for the girls. But as usual, they were happy, and energetic and up for the task.

It was a really positive day, with some residents of the housing project coming out to thank the girls for their good work.

For some more photos of the day, go to NYRP's Facebook page here.

Welcome Back Pizza Party

What a fun adventure-filled day! There were subways, ferries, trains and cars involved in getting to Michelle and Stella's family pizzeria in Staten Island. The girls had lots of fun on the ferry looking at the sights and singing Girl Scout/Camp songs. 

The pizza was amazing! If anyone missed the clam pie, you need to head right back and get one. You can tell how good the pizza was, as there is not one single photo of any. We were too busy wolfing it down to take photos!!

It was a nice, relaxed afternoon. Great for catching up with one another. Thanks so much to the Palemine family for welcoming us to their restaurant Lee's Tavern.

September Meeting

 Hello Families,

Our first meeting was a big success, this year of scouting has officially begun! 
To our new families we usually send a recap of our meetings so you know what the kiddos are up to and you can get a better idea of what it means to be a Girl Scout.  
So here it is…

We started our 1st meeting of this year with a ceremony to initiate our newest girls to Girl Scouts and they became our troops first Junior members.
Our troop is very lucky to now have Kaya, Sofia and Taylor as Girl Scout sisters… Welcome to Troop 2440!

The ceremony was very sweet, we used different color electric candles to represent what Girl Scouts stands for…
Green reminds us that we have a duty to perform, that is to follow the Girl Scout Promise and Law. 
Red stands for fire, which can be used for good or evil.  Fire is a symbol for our emotions, we can be kind or hurtful if our "fires" are uncontrolled.
Blue stands for faith and loyalty.  It's important to know what you believe in, have faith in each other and stay loyal to our beliefs.
White stands for honesty in thought, word and deed toward ourselves and others.
Yellow stands for sunshine.  As the sun warms us, may we spread warmth and friendship to those we meet.

We then had a "bridging/fly up" ceremony for our former Brownies.  The new girls stood on one side of our rainbow bridge and the brownies were called up one by one from their brownie ring and they crossed over to Juniors.  They received a wings badge from one of their sisters and were pinned as Juniors by us.

After the ceremonies we had a little party with cupcakes, brownies, cheese sticks and pretzels.  The brownies symbolized the girls as Brownies, and the cupcakes had the Girl Scout trefoil symbol on them. We also had a toast for great year of scouting with bubbly pink lemonade.

During our snack time we had everyone talk about what they liked about scouting, what they were looking forward to and some ideas for trips and activities.  As always your girls amaze us with their sweetness, intelligence and of course their humor!  Here are a few samples of some of the things we heard…

"Looking forward to great adventures!"

"I love meeting new people!"

"Selling cookies and EATING them!"

"The snacks."

"All the fun things our troop leaders plan!"

"I love my nice sisters and they make me so proud!"

Trip/Activity ideas...

Washington DC

Natural history museum sleepover

Horseback riding

Universal Studios (Harry Potter)

Camp Kauffman

Ice skating

Broadway show

Painted Pot

Movie day

Swimming

Luna Park

Just to name a few of their suggestions, obviously some are more likely to happen than others but we wanted to let you know what they were thinking!  They certainly have some BIG ideas!!

We then made a rainbow loom bracelet with a special rainbow bridge charm. It was very exciting!  The girls did great helping each other, they worked together in 2's and made one for the sister they were paired with.  We were very impressed with their patience with one another and how well they worked together.  

Of course we did a round of freeze dance, it seems to be a fan favorite, congratulations to Abby the freeze dance winner!
The meeting ended with us distributing their new Junior supplies and the Friendship circle.

Thank you to Laura and Kendall for volunteering at our first meeting!!