MONTCLAIR, N.J. — The Back Yard Girls isn’t your usual day camp where you make a craft, learn a new skill, and take a hike in the woods
Sure, they do plenty of those things, but each day they pair them with an act of generosity. You might find the Backyard Girls tie-dying shirts, but they’re actually Onesies that they’re working on for a sale later that week to benefit a local non-profit.
Knowing of the camp’s work, Family Promise Essex was thrilled to find out that the Back Yard Girls would be helping by donating school supplies. But they didn’t just collect them and drop them off. Instead, they lovingly decorated oatmeal containers that they used for storing the school supplies.
On a later occasion, the girls made items that they sold to benefit FPE in front of the South Orange train station, all the while telling passersby about FPE’s mission of helping homeless families.
Many thanks to Bethany Pettigrew, Alison Yablonsky, and Guada Bas, the leaders of Step2Gether’s Back Yard Girls for teaching girls about the joy of giving back.
