Lynnfield Girl Scout Improves Dare Foster Care Agency

The following is an announcement from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts:

Kaitlin McKenzie, a senior at , completed a project with the Dare Family Services in Somerville Mass., as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award.  The project helped secure additional foster parents for Dare and updated the foster care facility.  The Gold Award is the highest honor available to Girl Scouts, and it is a reflection of Kaitlin’s ten-year involvement with scouting. 

Multiple parts went into making this project possible.  The high demand for foster parents from a national, state and local perspective was one of the main concerns Kaitlin addressed when creating this project.  Kaitlin worked with other troop members and friends to research the need for foster parents in New England and to understand what the challenges foster parents face.  Kaitlin also met with her troop leader and members of the Dare staff to discuss these issues on a local basis.  As part of the project, other members of her troop collected information.   They renovated several of the facilities including a group home and the waiting room where children play.  To fundraise for the project, Kaitlin painted and even held a yard sale. 

By working with the Dare Foster Care Agency staff, Kaitlin learned the urgency to secure additional foster families and believed that the most effective way to doing so is through advertising in communities using the local paper as a resource.  She also worked with a volunteer marketing firm to understand additional marketing needs Dare will need.  The agency’s new marketing program will be tested later this year in hopes of attracting more foster parents. 

Kaitlin plans to attend college next year and believes this project and her years as a Girl Scout have prepared her in understanding issues outside of the textbooks and on how to be a leader.