Labeling storm drains with the message "No Dumping" with Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District. Photo contributed
This past weekend, Girl Scout Troop 40 from Waples Mill in Oakton went to Virginia Beach and donated $350 in supplies to the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Stranding Response Program. This money came from selling cookies. At the Stranding Response Program, we fed turtles and watched them get medical treatments. Fi, another Brownie from my troop, said “feeding the turtles was my favorite part of the Stranding Response Program. But, you shouldn’t feed turtles by hand because they can become domesticated.” We also toured the Virginia Aquarium. We went on a behind the scenes tour. We saw people training and feeding stingrays, we saw sharks, and went above the tanks. We took a boat tour and saw some dolphins.
On our first day we met Lea Bonner who got a Girl Scout Gold Award by recycling oyster shells. She convinced multiple restaurants to recycle oyster shells. Over the past two years, Troop 40 has done a lot of service projects with water. From labeling storm drains to cleaning streams twice, making reusable bags out of t-shirts, to watching “A Plastic Ocean” we learned that we wanted to give our cookie money to a water conservation type of thing. We couldn’t have picked a better thing than the Stranding Response Program. This is our troop’s first big trip, and we hope it’s not the last!