Scouts spring clean for Rotterdam Boys & Girls Club

PHOTOGRAPHER: Erica Miller

Mila Haley, 5, of Rotterdam, picks up leaves Saturday at the Rotterdam Boys & Girls Club, part of Scouts community service.

ROTTERDAM – Give 36 Girl Scouts, plus their parents, three hours and an opportunity to help another service organization, and they’ll give you about 300 bags of raked leaves, sticks and debris, 40 more of collected garbage and they’ll even plant you a flower garden.

That’s what happened Saturday when Girl Scout Service Unit No. 212 of Northeastern New York, based in Rotterdam, volunteered to help the Boys & Girls Club of Rotterdam at the organization’s 721 Curry Road location.

Girl Scout Troop leaders Alissia Haig and Kim Haley said the clean-up effort was part of their organizations’ “give back community day” where they help another non-profit community service-oriented organization. They said this years event had an ecological component in honor of Global Youth Service Day 2019.

“We removed lots and lots of garbage,” Haig said.

Photos: Images from Saturday’s event, April 13, 2019

Julie Rouse, clubhouse director for the Boys & Girls Club, said she’s involved with both organizations; her daughter Knylah Rouse, 5, is in the Girl Scouts. She said it’s been a few years since the last time the property around the Boys & Girls Club received a thorough cleaning.

“This was just a Girl Scout event,” Rouse said. “So, what the Boys & Girls Club will do next week is we’ll come behind and clean up the rest of it. Hopefully this will be something we can do every year.”

Clearing the land around the clubhouse building should open up opportunities for new activities for the organization.

“Maybe we can now start a vegetable garden, which is a huge project,” Rouse said. “Our summer camp does a gardening program. So, now that things are cleared out, I’m hoping we can do both a flower and vegetable garden.”

Knylah Rouse, Juliana Fikes and Mila Haley, all kindergarteners at the Bradt Primary School in Mohonasen Central Schools, each helped with the clean up. They said volunteering for the clean up taught them important lessons.

“We learned to help keep the earth very clean,” Juliana said.

Photos: Images from Saturday’s event, April 13, 2019

“We learned how to rake mud and leaves,” said Knylah.

“And how to plant flowers,” Mila added.

Julie Rouse said the Boys & Girls Club of Rotterdam has about 1,000 members, serves approximately 160 youngsters per day and as many as 10,000 annually.