WHIZ KIDS: Brownies Deliver Sweets and Smiles to Totem Lake Assisted Living Facility

Names: Iris Arnan, Abby O'Neill, Grace Jones, Kate Dunn, Machaela Kurowski, Kira Seshaiah and Brianna Tremblay; second graders.

School and neighborhood: Brownie Troop 42401 has girls representing Peter Kirk, Mark Twain, Rose Hill and Benjamin Franklin elementary schools.

Accomplishment: Service project delivering songs and sweets to assisted living and Alzheimer patients at Totem Lake's Aegis Living facility.

Key to awesomeness:

Brownie Troop 42401 is made up of second grade girls who are all new to Girl Scouts, with the exception of one troop member. Until this point, the girls have been learning about Girl Scout ways, healthy eating and how to be helpers.

"We wanted to do a service project where the girls had to engage with others in the community," says troop leader Amy O'Neill.

They used their monthly meeting last week to make bookmarks and candy bags for the elderly residents of Aegis Living. Working in an assembly line, the girls filled the bags with a variety of sweets and then practiced the Brownie "Smile Song."

On Saturday morning, the Troop met at Aegis dressed in their hand-decorated T-shirts and signature brown vests. After being introduced by Sonia to the residents in the lobby, the girls lined up for a rousing rendition of the "Smile Song."

"We thought that song would make them happy," Brownie Iris surmised. And if the smiles adorning residents' faces are any evidence, it certainly brought some happiness.

The girls had prepared a variety of questions that they could ask residents in an effort to engage them in conversation. It was a challenge for some of the girls who were shy around the elderly residents.

Brownie Abby managed to discover that one resident used to be a Girl Scout when she was young. "She told me that she used to have a lot of fun being a Girl Scout," reports Abby.

Brownie Iris found a fellow science lover in another resident. "He used to be an oceanographer studying wave sounds and he collected seashells," says Iris, going on to ask, "Can we come back here sometime? I want to bring my ocean encyclopedia book to show him."

Though the visit was short, the troop is already planning a "next time" complete with more songs and perhaps an instrument or two. Budding magician Abby even discussed performing a few magic tricks for the residents.

Service is one of those special human interactions that blesses the server as much as the persons served. The Brownies of Troop 42401 are well on their way to "making the World a better place," a core value in the Girl Scout Law.