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Health & Fitness

Giving Back Girls Launch Back-to-School Smart Start for 400.

Back-to-School week has almost 6,000 kids from pre-Kindergarten through High School getting ready to start their 2013-2014 School year. It's a busy time for parents, teachers, school administrators and retailers, plus the Domino effect on so many others in our community including the Giving Back Girls who have just completed their third annual project of sorting out donations of school supplies into donated backpacks for some four hundred kids from K thru 12 who are eligible for assistance. 

The Giving Back Girls started up in 2010 by twin sisters, Erin and Emily Gibney, who are now Southngton High School students.  Erin and Emily were inspired in part by the work their mom, Tricia Gibney. does as the COO of the not-for-profit Arc of Southington.  

Erin says that they and other Middle School girls have been motivated by seeing the great need for help within our community and the organizations in town who they've seen working, giving their time, to help feed the hungry, the homeless and disadvantaged people in our town.  "We felt we should do something to help others as a way of giving back. ", Erin said.  

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Predominantly 7th to 10th graders, ranging in age from 7 to 15,the Giving Back Girls have grown to 23 girls working together within just three years. 

GB Girls are involved in various service programs year-round.  For example, there are the "Fill the Truck” Food Drives. The girls create and distribute flyers requesting shoppers to help by making a food purchase to donate as they leave a local store. Food gathered is delivered by the Fire Department to Southington Community Services to help feed hungry families. 

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The GB Girls run Bake Sales raise money for the Food Pantry to buy food to supplement their stocks during the course of the year. . 

In August. the girls collaborated with Southington Community Services in their annual Back-to-School Backpack program. Donations are made for K to 12th grade kids who need a helping hand to get started. The Giving Back Girls organize and sort and insert school supplies into backpacks by size, age, gender and color, labeling them accordingly, filling them with school supplies such as pencils, pens, crayons, memo pads, markers, color pencils, pencil sharpeners, folders, fun books and fun bags.  

Backpacks and supplies are from private donations and special drives, one of which is the “Fill A School Bus Drive” in which the Giving Back Girls participate. The girls hand out flyers listing needed school supplies to shoppers going into Walmart. 

Southington shoppers are generously supportive, adding needed school supplies to their shopping lists. As they leave the store, the GB Girls assist in getting donated supplies on the school bus.  

The girls worked at the SCS warehouse filling the backpacks with supplies, organizing them according to age and gender guidelines. The goal was to fill 400 donated backpacks by Aug. 19th, ready for pickup, delivery and distribution by SCS at Derynoski School on the next two days. 

The girls organized a system for filling the backpacks efficiently. Erin said, “Emily and I realize it’s also training and experience for the younger girls who will be leaders in future years.”

SCS Director, Janet Mellon, said: “I'm overwhelmed by the growing generosity and cooperation of the Giving Back Girls, the Board of Education, Walmart and many other private citizen donors.” This year, Dr. Carol Grant decided to promote the program, inviting patients and friends to drop off donations of needed supplies at her office. 

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