Girl Scouts learn hobbies for a lifetime

BOB MARTINSON/Frontiersman reporter

A local Girl Scout troop is using its newly acquired pottery-making skills to help people who eat at Beans Café in Anchorage.

Shelly Woodke, leader of Girl Scout Troop #958, polled her troop on what special hobbies the girls would like to learn and troop member Brooke Philippsborn chose pottery.

Woodke then learned from one girl's mother, Tony Shaw, about a woman named Bev Nash, who teaches pottery classes in the Valley.

Thanks to Nash, the girls have learned pottery and are producing "Bowls for Beans," a program that benefits Beans Café by selling bowls thrown by volunteers.

Woodke made arrangements with the charity to participate in the program, and, in turn, the girls will each receive a community service patch. This program adds to the girls' participation in community service in the Wasilla area, as bowl sales will occur in the Valley as well.

Tony Shaw's daughter, Kasey, a member of the troop, has twice taken a blue ribbon at the Alaska State Fair in pottery. The Brownie girls are working toward their "Try-It Patch" hobbies, something they can do in their free time.

As leader of the troop and through the involvement of the parents, Woodke was able to purchase five sewing machines, four sets of knitting needles, glass beads, card/pape r stamps and necessary materials for all the girls to use during one Wednesday a month, a program Woodke called "Hobbies for a Lifetime."

The troop meets every Wednesday for one and a half hours after school at Larson Elementary.

They are planning this to be an annual event involving Nash and the troop.

On March 10-11, sales will be held at Teeland Middle School, and proceeds from that event will go to the Wasilla Food Bank.

The bowls will be on sale March 12 at the Egan Center, with those proceeds going to Beans Café.