Five members of East Islip’s Cadette Girl Scout Troop 556 – including current East Islip High School freshmen Gianna Cappellino, Emma Gagliano, Abigail Humann and Anna Humann, along with former East Islip student Addison Weeks – recently earned the Girl Scout Silver Award, the highest honor a Cadette Girl Scout can achieve.

To complete the award’s required 50 hours of service, the troop dedicated its efforts to supporting the local nonprofit Hope for Youth. The girls raised nearly $1,900 to provide gift cards for the organization’s clients and completed a wide range of hands-on service projects. These included cleaning and weeding gardens, purchasing and planting new greenery, decorating shells for the garden spaces, painting signs with encouraging messages for therapists and assembling 120 drawstring bags filled with personal care items for Hope for Youth’s runaway houses. Additionally, the troop organized a large car wash at Applebee’s and collected donations through a Savers fundraising event to support their efforts.

“Congratulations to the girls and the entire troop on this amazing achievement,” Superintendent Paul Manzo said. “This is truly something to be proud of, and we’re so grateful to see our students representing our community in such a positive way.”