Elizabethtown townlively.com
SEPTEMBER 13, 2023
SERVING THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES SINCE 1954
VOL LXIV • NO 31
Local Girl Scouts complete Silver Award project BY FRANCINE FULTON
embers of a local Girl Scout troop recently completed their Silver Award project at Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary (SSBVM) Catholic School in Middletown. Students will be able to enjoy the Scouts’ work for years to come. The Scouts, led by troop leader Kay Livelsberger and mentor Angela Waner, SSBVM principal, installed five drums for the younger students to play with and painted multiplication tables in the outdoor recess lot. Scouts who completed the project were Gwen Hoover and Kaylee Meisinger, students at Elizabethtown Area Middle School, and Trinity Garcia, Ava Livelsberger and Meadow May, students at Donegal Junior High School. The girls are members of Troop 71686, which meets at Conoy Brethren in Christ Church, Elizabethtown.
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“The Girl Scouts did a great job. The drums are in our preschool Play Lab,” noted Mindy Kennedy, SSBVM director of development, explaining that the Play Lab is an outdoor classroom used in early childhood education. “The multiplication table is on our recess lot. Kindergarten
“The best part of the Silver Award is that you create something that keeps going on after the project.” through eighth-grade students can access them during daily outdoor recess. Our teachers may also take their math lessons outside for games on the table.” Meadow explained that the Silver Award is the second-highest award in Girl Scouts. “Each girl must put in 50 hours,” she said, noting that
the Scouts completed a total of 251 hours working on the project. The idea for the project originated with Ava, whose family members are parishioners at SSBVM Catholic Church. “Our troop leader told us to ask around in order to figure out what was (a need) in the community,” said Meadow. “Ava asked the pastor and people at the church, and they said that that they needed the five musical drums to be put in. We came up with the multiplication tables.” The troop, along with help from family members, completed the project on weekends from April through August. “The school had the drums, and we had to put them in concrete,” Meadow explained. “We had to raise the money, but we got a donation from Home Depot in Lancaster.” JB Hostetter & Sons of Mount Joy donated the use of a cement mixer. “The multiplication tables took See Girl Scouts pg 8
The drums were installed by Girl Scouts (front to back) Kaylee Meisinger, Trinity Garcia, Meadow May, Ava Livelsberger and Gwen Hoover.
Putting kindness into action
Building good habits through biking
ETN
BY CATHY MOLITORIS
BY CATHY MOLITORIS
When youths are riding bikes as part of Lifecycles, they are doing much more than getting some exercise. As Lifecycles founder Lee DeRemer explained, neurological research has emerged in the past few years showing that when you challenge yourself to do hard things and you complete them, you can actually change the way your brain works. “It’s about a creating a set of habits that says, ‘I can do this,’ instead of, ‘I think that’s too hard,’” Lee shared.
See Kindness pg 4
Forty-three teens experienced what it’s like to “do hard things,” the motto of Lifecycles, when they participated in Challenge Rides this summer. One team rode 320 miles from the Pittsburgh area to Washington, D.C., while another team rode 535 miles from Portland, Maine, to Valley Forge. Three other teams completed a 380-mile journey around Lake Champlain and Lake George on the border of New York and Vermont. “They all did very well on the rides,” Lee said. “They dealt with See Biking pg 5 R098509
Residents of Masonic Village decorated 1,300 cookies as part of Be Kind to Humankind Week.
“Life is short, and it goes by fast,” said Masonic Village at Elizabethtown resident Mary Jones. “It’s so important to share with each other and try to make the world a better place.” That’s just what Jones did when she and a team of volunteers organized activities for residents at the Elizabethtown retirement community during Be Kind to Humankind Week, Aug. 25 to 31. As Jones explained, the idea for the project came about after Jones and a friend were discussing how they feel that kindness has fallen
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