For the month of November, The Mecca Girl Scouts Troop continued to learn about kindness and generosity. As they learn about being charitable, they explored the concept of homelessness. The girls learned that all blessings of a house, a good job, and the bounties of food and success come from Allah SWT. Sometimes through illness, loss of work, or natural disasters people struggle and don’t have the things that they need to get by.
The Girl Scouts learned about the wisdom of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in his AHadith “None of you will believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself” and “Your smile for your brother is a charity. Your removal of stones, thorns or bones from the paths of people is a charity. Your guidance of a person who is lost is a charity.” (Bukhari). We reflected on these Ahadith to talk about the importance of caring about others, how our actions can affect others, and why actively caring for our community will be the best way to follow the sunnah of our beloved Rasul (pbuh).
In connection to these Ahadith and last month’s theme, the Girl Scouts brought in huge bagfuls of plastic bags and film to be collected for the TREX recycling bins. These plastic bags and films that come from grocery stores, produce wrapping, cereal and bread bags, or the film around packages normally cannot go in regular recycling bins at home because the plastic is too thin for commercial recycling. TREX recycling program is a special way to make use of these thin plastic bags to produce composite decking material.
The Girl Scouts and their families collected these bags, diverting them from the landfill and brought in over 300 bags to be placed in the TREX bins. We were very excited to see how much plastic we have diverted from the landfill! If Mecca Center collects 500 pounds of plastic for TREX, we will earn a brand new bench produced from the recycled plastic bags for our masjid! Girl Scouts urge the entire Mecca community to save your plastic bags and films from the landfill and continue to drop them off in the designated TREX bins in the Mecca Center lobby. Please note these bins are not for trash or other recyclables.
The Daisies (Kindergarden and 1st graders) of the Troop worked together to hand knot a beautiful and cozy fleece blanket to kickoff the winter donations being collected at The Mecca Center for Cradles to Crayons! Masha’Allah it is a warm and beautiful blanket that they made and they prayed to Allah SWT, “to be happy with us, to give us compassionate hearts, to keep our homes safe, and for the blanket to keep a child warm and happy.”
The donation collection bin for Cradles to Crayons will be in the lobby of The Mecca Center throughout November. Please drop off your donations of baby board books, baby toys, new school supplies, everyday shoes, new pajamas and clothing in the collection bin during the month of November. The Troop and their families will visit the Chicago warehouse in December to learn how donations are cleaned and organized and given out to those in need and the Girl Scouts will participate in the cleaning and sorting of the donations in preparation for distribution.
