A local Girl Scout has earned her Gold Award by collecting food for the Hopkinton Food Pantry.
Emily Ehrmanntraut, 18, of Contoocook helped alleviate food insecurity with her project Food Pantry Fill-Up.
“The idea for this project came from the many years of my Girl Scout troop supporting our local food pantry on a regular basis in various ways,” Ehrmanntraut said. “We’d sometimes donate Girl Scout cookies, Christmas gifts, treats to go with the boxes of food at Christmas and even participated in the annual Scouting for Food Drive.”
“I think the biggest and most meaningful impact was when we started making birthday kits every few months for the last handful of years,” she added. “My Girl Scout troop would put them together for children who receive assistance from the food pantry. We would have a gift bag with cake mix, frosting and the like inside that parents could pick up for their children when they had a birthday.”
Marilyn Bresaw, Human Services Coordinator for the town of Hopkinton said in Girl Scout release that Hopkinton has had a food pantry for about 30 years. Having Ehrmanntraut’s help means a lot to Bresaw, who was the project’s advisor, and this project made the townspeople more aware that the pantry exists and that they have neighbors in need. The pantry is filled only by donations.
In Hopkinton, the poverty rate is 3.8% according to N.H. Employment Security.
“We supply food to a minimum of 50 families a week,” Bresaw said. “In the wintertime, more.”
Ehrmanntraut said one of the obstacles she faced was how to design the collection bins as visible as possible, which is why she decided to use bright pink tote bins. She also worked with Mark Winzeler to help pull her ideas together and get contacts for drop off spots.
“I put the bins in easy to access places like our town library, churches, schools and stores, so people don’t have to work around the food pantry hours and busy lives to be able to donate,” Ehrmanntraut said.
Within the first month, nearly 200 items were donated and more have poured in since then. The most successful bin was located at the local market in Contoocook.
“It’s a win-win,” she said. “The small business makes some extra sales while the food pantry continues to be supported.”
Ehrmanntraut graduated from Hopkinton High School last year and is now studying mechanical engineering at NHTI in Concord.
“Making that difference and knowing that something I did actually impacts someone’s life for the better just makes me happy, and I’m glad I was able to,” Ehrmanntraut said.
The Gold Award is the highest achievement in Girl Scouting and requires a minimum of 80 hours of community service, completion of two Senior or Ambassador rank journeys.