Rachel Vinciguerra a senior in high school received her Girl Scout Gold Award.
Over the past year I have begun work on my Girl Scout Gold Award Project. The idea of any Gold Award Project is to identify a need in a community and address that need with the project. I’ve identified intolerance as a problem in the Reading community and my project is designed to include as many people as possible in learning about tolerance. To do this there are three parts. Four peace gardens around town to represent universal tolerance, three speeches given by those who have face persecution and overcome it and two after school programs at the elementary schools. This project is designed to include the entire community and I hope that everyone will be touched by it in some capacity. Tolerance is very important to me and especially at this time in my life I feel like I’m in a good position to observe the world around me. I hope that my project will give people the opportunity to think about others more openly and try to be more understanding of what everyone has been through.
Samantha’s Harvest is very proud.
From April through June, Reading Recreation offers Challenger Baseball for children of all ages with special needs in Reading and surrounding towns. This is Sam’s fourth year playing and she loves it! She hits the ball when it is pitched to her with a skinny bat and is really excited about that! Everyone who plays is required to team up with a buddy. Sam’s buddy is her Papa, who loves that he is her special guy for one hour every Friday. Samantha hits her feet with the bat when she’s at the plate, spits in her hands and says she’s going to hit it like Papi – so cute!
Samantha attended Special Skates at the Burbank Ice Arena in Reading. It is an hour of ice skating once per week from October to February for kids with special needs. These kids are partnered with high school students, usually hockey and skating enthusiasts, who teach them how to skate. She LOVED it and can’t wait to start in October. She kept peeling off her layers of clothes saying I’m sweaty hot! So adorable and she did pretty well, too. The child is fearless!
Our first ever fashion show with Aine’s Boutique and Embellish Salon of Reading, MA last month was a fun way to raise funds and awareness for Samantha’s Harvest.
It was all glitz and glam at the Tanner Tavern of Woburn, MA as models walked the cat-walk in very up-tempo fashions by Aine’s Boutique. Two little models, however, did steal the show at the end – Samantha (our very own) and Aine, whose mom owns the boutique.
Samantha’s Harvest was thrilled to be able to spread the word about how they utilize funds through donations to charities that are just as committed to their cause.
“I think people were so very happy to come out and have a great time and learn more about what Samantha’s Harvest is all about,” said co-founder and vice-president Lisa Gibbs. “That we are dedicated to not only raising awareness about Down syndrome but also donating back to places like the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress (MDSC), The ARC of East Middlesex, the Woburn Launch Program, and VSA arts of Massachusetts to name a few. Samantha and her friend Aine had so much fun – we think she found her calling.”
Samantha and her dad, along with 300 runners, came together in September to run in the Marathon Sports Arc 5k Road Race. Funds raised in this event support the ARCs Recreation programs which include integrated sports, Special Olympics training and teams, dances, crafts, music therapy, cooking, outings and special events.
