The front-page photo was startling: four little Girl Scouts with sashes and pink shoelaces walking through the Kakaako shantytown without fear and without judgment.
Two weeks after going to Honolulu’s most notorious homeless encampment to deliver packets of soap and toilet paper, the fifth-graders of Troop 901 are amazingly matter-of-fact about what they did and what they saw.
“They’re technically just like us, but without a house,” said 9-year-old Rylee Balatico-Fujioka.
They could have just dropped off donations to an agency, but the girls wanted to go to the heart of the situation with clear-eyed compassion and useful things. “I was nervous, but I thought it was a great idea,” said troop leader Shannon Balatico. She and co-leader Roxanne Vannatta contacted the Girl Scouts Honolulu office to tell them the plan.
So much thought was put into the 90 hygiene kits. The troop kept 80 cents of each box of Girl Scouts cookies sold and saved up $400, using the entire amount on items for the kits. The girls used gallon-size, zip-close bags so the recipients could see everything that was inside. They made women’s kits and men’s kits. They put everything together at Vannatta’s Aiea home.
On a humid Tuesday afternoon, the girls loaded a little red wagon with the bags of toiletries and walked along the makeshift shelters.
People emerged from their tents to accept the kits and to say thank you. For the most part the interactions were brief but enough to convince the troop that they had done the right thing.
“It’s one thing when you tell your child how fortunate they are, how other people have to live. It’s very different when you hear it actually coming out of your child’s mouth,” Vannatta said.
So would they do it again? With no hesitation, the girls answer in unison: “Yes!” Each one has an idea for an even bigger project: toys for the kids, school supplies, collecting donations of books. They want to create math worksheets to help the kids get ahead in school. They also have ideas on how to solve homelessness.
Adia Dunn: “Build a shelter but increase the money you pay to the homeless people who work there so that they can save up and get their own apartment.”
Angelica Sanders: “Help them find housing or apartments — but not shelters, because people want their privacy.”
Sunshine Vannatta: “Stop sweeping them, because then they have to start all over again and they can’t save the money they need to get an apartment or a plane ticket.”
Rain Longoria: “Try not to be so hard on people, especially people who are alone.”
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
