Girl Scouts help out fellow students

Pam Hicks remembers what it was like to struggle with reading, so she and her fellow Girl Scout troop members found a way to make books more accessible for children with similar difficulties.

The four cadettes in Troop 1006 spent more than a year on a service project where they recorded almost 50 books onto CDs for Tampa Day School. The private school, where many of the children have mild or moderate learning disabilities, will start using the audio books this fall.

The efforts helped the Girl Scouts earn the Silver Award, which recognizes group service projects and is second in prestige only to the Gold Award - comparable to the Boy Scouts' Eagle Scout Award.

Pam, Tori Emerick, Michaela Johnston and Abby Keil learned how to record books on the computer, chose the titles they wanted and put together a binder with the CDs and photocopies of the books covers for the school library.

The girls - seventh- and eighth-graders at the time - also developed a set of vocabulary flash cards. They paid for materials with cookie sale proceeds.

"It's a lot of discipline," said troop leader Anne Marie Hicks, Pam's mother. "It's a lot of work."

Pam, Michaela and Abby will attend Leto High School in the fall. Tori attends Academy at the Lakes in Pasco County.

Each girl had to log at least 40 hours on the project. They started by brainstorming ideas, ranging from helping animals to donating blankets for babies, but quickly settled on a project benefitting children.

Tampa Day School was a natural choice. Since 2006, the troop has met at the school, where Pam, 14, attended fourth through eighth grades. The girls also had started an after-school troop for students and helped teach girls how to earn badges. This summer, Pam is volunteering at the school's camp.

The troop wanted to do something that would have a lasting impact, and Pam met with Outreach Coordinator Andrea Mowatt to find out what the school needed.

The school was redoing its library at the time, and Mowatt suggested the girls record the books. The elementary-level books will allow students to be more independent, she said. The students can listen as one of the troop members reads an advanced story or follow along with the text.

For Pam, who struggled with reading when she was younger, the time spent rehearsing and recording the books improved her comprehension, too.

"It makes me feel good because I'm helping others, and I'm helping myself," she said.