Local Scouts Helps Troops Overseas

Everybody knows and loves the time of year when local girls from around the neighborhood are selling their delicious Girl Scout cookies. 

Recently, a group of scouts from around Monmouth and Ocean Counties worked together to send a little piece of home to troops serving overseas. Working with an organization called the American Recreational Military Services (ARMS) and the Girl Scouts of the Jersey Shore Gift of Caring program, the girls sent an incredible 2,678 boxes in a show of their appreciation for their efforts.

On the local level the program was run by Troop 1190 for the third straight year. The girls were responsible for collecting, sorting and packing the cookies for their trip across the ocean. They were not alone as other scouts from places like Beachwood, Bradley Beach, Brick, Jackson, Navesink, Neptune and Toms River all came together to make the project a success.

Their efforts were not lost on the people involved with ARMS, as Ronnie Micciulla, the director of the program credited them for all their hard work. "I Know at times it seems like they are 'only cookies,' but that is not what they mean to our troops deployed," she said. "Girl Scout cookies to them, means America. It means that little touch of home that they miss so much."

Micciulla said those brave men and women who receive the cookies often send thank you notes to the program and the girls for giving them another connection to the homes they are so far away from. And even thousands of miles from home, the troops still remember what their favorite cookies are. "Just a month ago I received a letter from an Air Force pilot who had just flown a mission over Afghanistan. She requested some boxes of lemon cookies. She told us that after each mission she relaxed with a few lemon cookies and a cup of tea," Micciulla recalled. 

For more information on the ARMS program, you can check out their website.