These Girl Scouts do more than just sell cookies

Longtime Inwood resident and Lawrence High School graduate Meliza Berrios wants to use her leadership of Girl Scout Troop 701 to inspire 15 young girls at the Lawrence School District’s Number Five School. Berrios hopes to persuade them to do community-minded deeds and spend less time playing video games, watching television and surfing the Internet.

Established in November, the troop held its third meeting at the Imperial Room on Doughty Boulevard in Inwood on Jan. 5, so the girls could get better acquainted with one another and make plans for the New Year. “I want them to be part of something and inspire them through music,” said Berrios, who played the latest music, including Justin Bieber, to get the girls to have fun and dance together. “We came up with ideas for the community to get the girls to help out, such as donating to the less fortunate and visiting the elderly in nursing homes.”

Cedarhurst resident Trish Terrone said she is proud of her daughter Jaclyn, 6, a first-grader at the Number Five School and a first-year member of Troop 701. “There are so many activities and community events that improve the girls’ social skills and make them better all around,” she said. “I’m glad she wanted to join.”

Troop 701’s “Cookie Mom,” Marie Price-Pierre of Inwood, is in charge of distributing Girl Scout cookies, setting up booths where the girls can sell them and coordinating safety workshops when the Scouts sell them door to door.

According to Price-Pierre, Troop 701 hopes to set up booths at Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream and Roosevelt Field Mall in Garden City, among others. “The money from cookie sales will go directly to our troop,” she said. “The money will allow us to help the community through activities like the shoe and coat drive we’ll be doing soon to help the less fortunate.”

Pierre enrolled her daughter Daniella, 7, a second-grader at the Number Five School, in Girl Scouts for the sense of sisterhood and because she feels it’s important to assist the community. “When they volunteer and work towards a goal, they’ll see they’re the cause of something like a trip that they’re able to take because of cookie sales,” she said. “They also become better students because they’re more active in the community and open up more.”

Daniella said she is looking forward to selling Girl Scout cookies and serving those around her. “I’m helping my community by giving to others and donating things to people,” she said. “Selling cookies helps others with everything they need. I also feel that [as a Girl Scout] I am a girl that can help others when they’re sad and stand up for my friends.”

Ariana Gautreaux, Berrios’s daughter and a third-grader at the Number Five School, said she is eager to get out in the community and sell cookies. “Giving to the poor people makes me feel great,” she said.

Although Berrios was not a Girl Scout in her youth, she is learning how to lead a troop. “I’m now learning as an adult,” she said. “I go online and go to Girl Scout workshops, so I’m learning little by little.”