Girl Scouts refurbish, rebuild trail sign in Cranberry
CRANBERRY TWP — Hikers, joggers and visitors taking a walk in the township now have a new sign to guide their way thanks to a project put together by Girl Scout Troop 20546.
The group of nine fourth- and fifth-grade girls worked to build and install a freshly designed map of the trails that snake across the Cranberry Township Community Park as part of their Bronze Award.
“We've always had our meetings up at the Rotary shelter next to the sign, and it was a previous Eagle Scout project, it was completed in 2004, the original wooden sign,” said troop leader Georgie Dieteman.
The troop wanted to create a project that focused on the principles of “Leave No Trace” and respecting the environment, Dieteman said.
“We used the Leave No Trace principles in addition to updating the Cranberry Park map, which changed recently when they added the new dog park and the new trails,” she said. “This sign was really updating the community park while also serving as a Bronze Award project.”
The girls worked to match the landscaping on the sign to the rest of the park, and restored the frame of the sign, troop leader Kim Fantauzzi said. It’s really a reminder for our community. Leave No Trace for our parks and make sure you’re taking care of everything while you’re there.”
For a Bronze Award, projects have to meet certain categories, she said.
“It has to be something where you are giving back to your community, and it has to be sustainable,” she said. “It has to be something that will be there for a long time. It’s not like you can go and volunteer for a day — it has to be something that is giving back and will be there for a while.”
The troop was responsible for planning the project from the beginning, Fantauzzi added.
“We did a lot of work leading up to this, trying to figure out what project we wanted to work on. We toured the other parks, we walked around the trails, and we looked at all the other signs at the other trails and tried to figure out what’s missing, where do our parks need help?” she said. “Working with our Cranberry Parks and Rec team, that’s how we found out there wasn’t a trail map. The girls were the ones who really helped to drive that and (made) all those decisions on what our project was going to be.”
Township public works director Kelly Maurer said the project was an ideal size for the troop to accomplish, and a big help in a time of short staffing.
“It was just a good mix of a need that the township had in the park — the sign was showing its wear — and we were glad to be able to put a volunteer group together to give it new life,” she said. “It was the right sized project for that group, it was done quickly, and it’s a permanent improvement in the park. It’s a great project.”
The effort brought together not only the troop and the township, but also multiple different township departments, she added.
She said the township’s park and rec department facilitated the volunteers, the mapping department did the map, the communications department helped with some of the graphics and the traffic department made the sign.
“It was kind of nice to see all the different groups come together,” Maurer said.
Dieteman thanked Phelps Nursery, Penn Global Signs and an anonymous donor for their help with the project.
“It’s very helpful for a small troop to have those donations,” Fantauzzi said. “It could have been a very, very expensive project to do all that if we didn’t have the donations we had.”
