'Take what you need, leave what you can': Raynham Girl Scouts install Little Free Pantry

RAYNHAM — Johnson’s Pond in Raynham now has a Little Free Library… AND a Little Free Pantry.

On May 12, Raynham Jr. Girl Scout Troop 82256 gathered at Johnson’s Pond, fastened the decorated pantry box to its post and stocked the new Little Free Pantry with food items for those in need. Then the group held a ribbon-cutting to mark the opening of the pantry and the completion of a long-in-the-works community service project.  

The new addition is now located right next to the existing Little Free Library, managed by local Cub Scouts. A sign just below the pantry box sums up the idea: “Take what you need, leave what you can.”

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Troop co-leader Kathy McNeice, along with co-leader Elisha Freeman, has been with the group for a number of years. She says the project is part of the troop’s Bronze Award requirements started two years ago, before the the pandemic.

“We have the Bronze Award, which is the highest award for a Junior Girl Scout Troop to earn,” McNeice explained, “and they had to do a community project, something to give back to the community, kind of find a problem or something to work on.

“We started working on this before COVID, when they just transitioned from Brownies to Juniors.”

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Learning about food insecurity

Troop members and leaders kept the endeavor alive through the pandemic with Zoom meetings and lessons about food insecurity and the ways food banks and pantries, large and small, help with feeding community members who need an assist.

Those lessons were reinforced with visits to local food pantries and participating in a Thanksgiving Day meal assembly and delivery event.

Also, the Scouts had to prepare for a Q&A about their project and how it benefits the community as part of the Bronze Award requirements.

“So like doing like cookie booths and stuff, they would ask people, ‘If you had didn't have food, what kind of food would you want?’ So we talked about some of the stuff that would be in the food pantry, as well as where would we put this and who we gonna reach out to. 

“And the girls were amazing. They did a phenomenal job.” 

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Keeping up with the pantry

Troop members are now charged with maintaining the pantry and its contents.

“Each girl is gonna take one week. So we're gonna be on a rotating schedule to make sure everything looks good. Make sure it's not damaged. Make sure there's enough food in there, nothing is expired. And that’s how we’ll keep up with it.”  

Costs for the needed materials and the pantry box, which was purchased via Etsy, were provided by the Louise and Richard Freeman, parents of Troop 82256 co-leader Elisa Freeman.

The girls handled the decorating. For now, the pantry is painted white with self-styled images of each of the troop members. Future updates have been discussed.

“So the girls chose to do it white and put themselves on there now, and next year, if they want, they already talked about how they want to change it — paint it black, actually do the black chalkboard paint so people can write sayings on it and stuff like that.

“So they're already thinking ahead, which is great. They're very motivated.” 

Taunton Daily Gazette staff writer Jon Haglof can be reached at jhaglof@tauntongazette.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Taunton Daily Gazette today.