By Krystle S. Morey
Nearly half a dozen Girl Scouts visited the Granville Sentinel Thursday.
As part of the journey to earning their Bronze Award, the scouts visited the newsroom to learn how the newspaper business works and how news helps to inform members of the community.
Troop 3225 from Granville learned everything from pagination to how ads and classifieds find their way into the paper.
Natalie Williams, 11, said the best part of the tour was learning from Valerie Moore, classified/advertising manager, how all of the classified ads are submitted, formatted and published in the paper.
Last month the scouts set out to help their community by visiting three area nursing homes – Indian River Rehabilitation and Nursing Home, Mountainview Commons and Holbrook’s – to help residents with craft projects, another part of fulfilling the Bronze Award’s requirements.
“It was fun doing the crafts with (nursing home residents),” Williams said. “And it was inspiring to see how their daily life is.”
Briana Ferrin, 13, said making bracelets and mosaic picture frames with the scouts was a highlight for many residents.
“A lot of them don’t have a lot of visitors,” said Ayva Ferrin, 11.
The troop also visited the ASPCA to gather information and photos to help get animals adopted. John Manchester, publisher of Manchester Newspapers, agreed to publish the article for free.
Troop Leader Ann Ferrin said the biggest challenges so far in working to earn the scouts’ Bronze Award have been: identifying how the troop can help the community; what it could afford; how money could be raised, if needed; how to put the plan into action; and how to spread the word so others can continue the projects.
None of the girls usually reads the newspaper regularly, stating most of their news is consumed on social media sites such as Facebook; however, after seeing how many people are reached by Manchester Newspapers’ five publications each week, the scouts said they may start.
Though the scouts enjoyed their visit to the newsroom, none of them has any desire to pursue journalism. Instead, they’ve got their sights set on careers in finance, traveling, veterinary studies and mortuary science.
As far as story ideas to pursue in Granville, the scouts thought reporters should investigate school drama, drug use by students, lack of recreation time during the school day and quality of school lunches.
The girls said, other than the cookies, the best parts of being Girl Scouts is meeting new people and going on adventures, like the troop’s upcoming, year-end trip: going to the Bromley Mountain zip line.