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Girl Scout is picture perfect Resident’s photo to appear on cookie boxes By Michele Alperin Little did long-time Robbinsville resident Samantha DeMartino know when she joined Girl Scout Troop 71140 as a cadette in fi fth grade that a decade later, she would be one of the “faces” of the organization’s most iconic products. This year, as a senior in high school, her photo is on every single Girl Scout cookie box. Two years ago, she received an email from the Girl Scouts asking her to send headshots to
the person in charge of media and to complete an application. “They did not tell us what the photos were for, so I assumed that it was for camp pamphlets or other program advertising,” she wrote in an email. A couple days later, DeMartino got another email inviting her to take photos at Camp Rickabear, a Girl Scout camp in northern New Jersey. Photographers were taking shots of many sets of girls, and about a year later, she got the news that her photo had been selected to be on the cookie box. In the photo she is standing in the center, with two younger girls on either side. “Our hands are in the center,” she said. “It is supposed
to symbolize the trefoil logo to symbolize mentorship—how an older girl can teach younger girls and younger girls can teach older girls.” At the unveiling ceremony at the council office in East Brunswick in August 2019, her mother, uncle, and grandmother looked on. In front of her was a package with a variety of stickers on it, and the Girl Scout staff surprised her by announcing they would film her as she opened the box and explained what she saw, thereby creating “an unboxing video.” Inside the box was confetti and a note from the CEO of Girl Scouts. Finally she reached the See SCOUT, Page 10
Helping out from head to toe Robbinsville boy aims to donate 25,000 pairs of shoes By Lois LeVine
Robbinsville basketball player Vanessa Sabol goes for a layup during a 59-30 home loss to Notre Dame Jan. 17, 2020. For more girls’ basketball coverage, turn to Page 22. (Photo by Suzette J. Lucas.)
Log on to the Soles4Souls 25K Shoe Drive page on Facebook, and you’ll find a picture of a smiling seventh grader—surrounded by more shoes that one could fit into a seriously shoecrazy fashionista’s closet. Sneakers, penny loafers, flip-flops, boots: What’s this all about? It all began when Zachary Miller, now 12 years old and a seventh grader at Pond Road Middle School, was 10. As his mom, Wendy Miller, said, “My other son [Jared, who is now 16] was doing his bar mitzvah project at the time, collecting tennis equip-
ment for kids in need. We have always donated clothes and shoes to Soles4Souls and after looking at the website one day, I showed the kids the videos from the site.” Zach remembers the videos well. “There were kids on streets with no shoes, no socks, walking on dirt and debris. It made me really sad. Even though it was three years away, I decided that was going to be my bar mitzvah project.” Wendy remembers how passionate he was at the time, and said, “I had to remind him, laughing, ‘Can’t we get through Jared’s Bar Mitzvah first? Yours isn’t for another three years.’” Fast forward to January 2019. Zach was ready to dive into his Soles4Souls—a nonprofit organization based in Tennessee that provides, among other
things, clothing and shoes around the world to those in need—initiative, so the first thing the family did was to meet with Lizzy Ann Swiderski, the regional donation manager for Soles4Souls in New Jersey, who they had first spoken to in October 2018. In April 2019, Soles4Souls put out a press release about Zachary’s project. As a result, Robbinsville Councilman Dan Schuberth reached out to the family to offer his support, helping them enormously with businesses they could reach out to. “He helped a lot too, with publicizing the event, and Zach also got to meet [councilpeople] Ron Witt and Chris Ciaccio,” Wendy said. Their first big event was a pop-up shoe drive at the Robbinsville Police Department in See SHOES, Page 9
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