Analiesa Chavez & Kelsey Bonner, both 14, are Cadettes (Scouts in Grades 6-8) with the Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida Troop 20820. The girls both earned their Silver Award for their work on the book.
Boca Helping Hands has posted the cookbook on their website as a resource, will share it on social media, and include a new recipe each week in its pantry bags.
“We were researching what initiative we could do to earn our Girl Scouts Silver Award, and we knew that we wanted to help those less fortunate than us,” Analiesa said. “We knew about Boca Helping Hands through our troop. We came up with the idea of putting together a recipe book using common ingredients from the pantry bags and thought it would be a great way to help Boca Helping Hands clients.”
The girls spent four months researching the book and volunteered at the organization repeatedly to better understand Boca Helping Hands’ work.
“Gathering the information is the part that took us the longest,” Analiesa said. Kelsey added, “We did lots of research about what would be nutritious and not time-consuming, using the resources clients are given. We know that a lot of people can't spare the time it takes to defrost, prep a bunch of ingredients, and cook for a long amount of time.”
Dawn Chavez, Analiesa’s mother, and 20820 troop leader says the girls learned a lot about what goes into a meal from working on this project. “I'm a mom and I'm used to creating meals for a family of 5, so I thought it would be easy for them, but there was a major learning curve,” she said. “They had to test the recipes to make sure they worked well with the ingredients in the pantry bags.”
One of the girls’ biggest challenges was figuring out ingredient alterations and substitutions, since not all pantry bags contain the same items. In addition to testing recipes for ease of use, they also identified additional proteins and spices that could be swapped in to make them more adaptable.
The Silver Award is the highest award a Girl Scout Cadette can earn. Eligible projects require service with an organization that helps others in the community and must have an educational and teaching component.
After completing their project, the two girls feel more connected to the community. “I've never really thought about people struggling with food - I always thought food was something people just had,” Kelsey said. “You hear about it [food insecurity], but you don't quite understand it until you see it. This experience was definitely eye-opening, and it was nice to give back. It feels good that we can help people who are struggling at a time like this.”
