A project with personal meaning evolved into a pathway to completing the prestigious bronze award for a troop of local Girl Scouts.

Following the recent delivery of over 100 pillows to mastectomy patients with breast cancer, Murphy-based Girl Scout Troop 8061 completed its effort to receive the bronze award. The troop, made up of fifth and sixth graders, has been together since kindergarten, and will now continue making progress toward a silver award and, ultimately, the gold award.

Troop Leader Melissa Eubanks said the Scouts were active throughout the whole process, requiring little more than guidance from parents about getting the work done. The girls were also efficient throughout the process, she added, while they ran meetings and divided labor for making the pillows.

To select the project, several options were discussed before the troop rallied behind the idea of making pillows for breast cancer patients. The pillows had a special meaning to the troop because one of the moms is a breast cancer survivor and they wanted to spread out the impact.

Lauren Martin, a Scout in Troop 8061, said she and her fellow troop members wanted to ensure that cancer patients had something comfortable use, especially since the pillows are used as a support for comfort and compression under the arm and against the upper body. At the end of the project, 105 pillows were donated Monday, April 10, to Dr. Beth Anglin at Complete Breast Care, which is located at Building C, 3801 W. 15th St. Suite 150B in Plano.

Ellie Karlovetz, another troop member, echoed Lauren’s sentiments and stressed the overall impact of the project.

“I’m happy there’s a lot of women over there [at Complete Breast Care] who have a nice pillow to use,” Ellie said.

Ella Haxel said it was important to her that the pillows were comfortable to the patients that use them, adding that she enjoyed impacting so many patients.

“I’m glad we got to help a bunch more people get comfortable with these pillows,” Ella said.

When the troop was defining the parameters of the project, it held several planning meetings that included a vote to decide on the pillows and what the overall budget would be. Using proceeds from Girl Scout cookie sales, $500 was earmarked for the bronze award project.

For the full story, see the April 19 issue of The Wylie News.