The Girl Scouts of St. Vincent de Paul School have a lot of reasons to smile after they recently filled 30 “Birthday in a Bag” kits. Each bag is a birthday party waiting to happen. The Scouts are doing it for families who can't afford to have a birthday party for their child.  It is the simple thought for others that is turning into a huge success story. Junior Troop 2224 found out about this National Service Project for the 100^th Birthday Celebration of Girl Scouts through a social media site where Kansas Junior Troop leader Amanda Chastain reached out to other Girl Scout troops to participate.  The idea quickly spread to all 50 states and Puerto Rico with more than 450 troops participating.

A Birthday-in-a-Bag is a self-contained gift bag with everything you need for a child to have a Happy Birthday party. Every child needs some recognition of their birthday. However certain circumstances occur that might not make that possible. A Birthday-in-a-Bag can make a birthday more special. The bags filled with plates, napkins, party favors, cake pans, cake mixes plus many extras needed to have a party will be donated to the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry and handed out to families in need who has a child celebrating a birthday.

Junior Troop 2224 is grateful for the help of other Girl Scout Troops in Long Hill : Troop 175, Troop 204, Troop 870, Troop 1014, Troop 1752, Troop 1753, Troop 1939, Troop 2204, Troop 4231, Troop 4232, Troop 4573 as well as other individual Girl Scouts; families from St. Vincent de Paul School and Church as well as many members of the Long Hill Community for all their generosity.

As well as being an exciting and fun service project, the 'Birthday-in-a-Bag' was the perfect way to celebrate a couple of important Girl Scout birthdays: October 31^st is the birthday of Girl Scout founder Juliette Low and 2011 is the 100th birthday of Girl Scouting.  Junior Troop 2224 was one of several troops featured in a story about the project on Kansas station KSNW.