Gwinnett Daily Post

SUWANEE - Junior Girl Scouts from Suwanee and Sugar Hill recently collected 350 bags of food for the North Gwinnett Cooperative Ministry.

The Juniors of Troop 1425, part of the Lanier Service Unit, distributed 900 paper grocery bags to homes in the Deer Valley, Ascot and Grandview subdivisions in Suwanee and Arbor Close subdivision in Sugar Hill, troop leader Virginia Johnson said. Donna Phillips is the troop's co-leader.

The girls decided to organize a food drive to work toward earning the Bronze Award, Johnson said.

The Girl Scout Bronze Award, the highest honor a Junior Girl Scout can earn, requires girls to learn the leadership and planning skills necessary to follow through on a project that makes a positive impact on their community, according to the Girl Scout Web site. Working towards this award demonstrates the girl's commitment to helping others, improving her community and the world, and becoming the best she can be.

"The girls wanted to do something big," Johnson said. "At this time of year, there's not a lot of donations going on, so they decided on a food drive."

Publix in Sugar Hill donated the paper grocery bags to the troops, and the girls created fliers to attach to the bags and distributed them throughout the neighborhoods.