Bridge to Asia -- National Geographic Drives

The Associated Press

From the Seattle P.I.

Brownie's collection project is one for the books

Monday, March 16, 1998

BELLEVUE -- Eight Brownie Girl Scouts. Thirty thousand books and magazines.

These kids don't mess around.

The parents of Brownie Girl Scout Troop No. 1060 were skeptical that their uniform-clad daughters could collect 5,00 books and magazines to send to Asian countries.

"After the first weekend, we were over 5,000," troop leader Mary Kent said. "We said, 'Well, that's easy.'"

Since that first weekend in Feburary, the monthlong drive, which focused on National Geographic, had collected more than 30,000 books and magazines.

Although some troop parents have suffered logistical problems -- such as Donnedda Moore, who offered her family's Bellevue home as the campaign's warehouse, only to have trucks and vans loaded with publications show up in her driveway -- the girls and their troop leaders couldn't be happier.

Brownies and their parents traveled all over Seattle and its suburbs picking up donated magazines. When theat became too much, they restricted their pickups to 15 drop-off sites.

"At some points it was hard and tiring, and at other points it was fun," said 9-year-old Margaret Davie, a third-grader at St. Louise Catholic Church in Bellevue, where all the Brownies go to school.

Their work ended Saturday.

A 20-foot-long shipping container was dropped off Friday and carted to the Part of Seattle yesterday. The container will be full when it leaves the port thse week for Beijing.

Bridge to Asia, a non-profit group that distrubites materials to Asian countries, is paying the shipping costs.

The San Francisco-based agency told Kent the troop's collection is the organization's largest ever.

Kent said the credit belongs to those eight tiny troopers.

"I'm so pround of the Girl Scouts," she said. "To collect this many for eight little girls is incredible."

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