What began as a shared Girl Scout goal has grown into a large-scale community effort led by two 14-year-olds determined to make a difference for students at Bostonia Global Elementary School.
Madison McDonald and Lina Wallace are organizing a backpack drive to provide school supplies for children in an underserved community, aiming to distribute more than 800 backpacks ahead of the 2026–2027 school year.
For both girls, the motivation is simple and rooted in a desire to help others.
“What inspired me was seeing the number of kids that needed help,” Lina Wallace said. “If you’re able to help someone, then why not help them? I think by doing this backpack drive that we will be able to help a lot of kids and maybe take some stress off of parents, too.”
For Madison, the inspiration also came directly from the school community they are already connected to.
“I really wanted to do a project for children,” she said. “Our Girl Scout troop meets at Bostonia Global Elementary School, and Lina and I have developed a special place in our hearts for the children there.”
The project is part of their effort to earn the Girl Scout Silver Award, one of the organization’s highest youth honors. After several weeks of brainstorming, the idea quickly took shape with support from troop leadership and school officials.
“Madison suggested the idea, and I think from there we got straight to work,” Lina said. “The first step we took was running the idea by our troop leader, Ms. Val.”
“Lina and I both wanted to earn our Silver Award, and we decided that we wanted to do something to give back to the school,” Madison said. “We brainstormed for a couple of weeks and came up with doing a backpack drive. After we decided on the backpack drive, we got permission to do the project from our troop leader, Ms. Val, and then we reached out to the principal, Mrs. Rocha, to present our idea.”
The scale of the effort reflects both the need they are addressing and the ambition behind the project. McDonald said that a significant portion of families in the school community face financial challenges.
“Roughly 75% of the families in the Bostonia Global School District are underserved,” she said. “We hope to supply each child at Bostonia Global Elementary with all of the supplies needed for their school year so that families do not need to worry about purchasing school supplies.”
Lina said the choice to focus on backpacks was intentional.
“I think backpacks are pretty universal and at one point in time everyone needs one from the ages of 5 to 18, maybe even college,” she said. “I hope that the students who will receive them will be happy. I think that backpack drives should happen more often. They are very beneficial to people.”
Organizing a project of this scale has required flexibility and strong time management.
“I have had my heart set on several ideas for the project, but we hit a few roadblocks along the way and needed to shift directions and make new plans,” Madison said.
For Lina, balancing the project with school and other commitments proved to be one of the biggest challenges.
“The biggest challenge I faced during this project would be scheduling,” she said. “I go to public school, so it takes up a lot of my time, and sometimes even other Girl Scout things take up my time. Cookie season was happening during this project, so it was kind of hard because I was busy doing the booth while also trying to do the project. It was an experience, but Madison was very helpful, and she was able to record meetings that I wasn’t able to attend.”
Despite those challenges, both girls said the response from the community has been one of the most encouraging aspects of the effort.
“I was surprised at how excited people, both near and far, were about supporting the project,” Madison said. “The backpack drive didn’t just bring together a community; it brought people around the country together to support the children at Bostonia.”
“I think what surprised me was the number of people who are helping us, by donating or even helping us with the project,” Lina said. “It’s nice to have a village behind you, because Madison and I don’t know everything in the world, but we can ask questions and get help when we need it.”
At the center of the effort is a shared hope: that students will begin the school year feeling prepared and confident.
“I hope that the backpacks will bring them joy and help them go into the new school year with confidence,” Madison said.
“I hope that their school year is wonderful because they will have the supplies they need, and they won’t have to worry about not having anything or not being able to participate in school work because they don’t have what they need, so they will be able to focus on school much better and have fun,” Lina said.
Beyond collecting backpacks, the experience has also been a lesson in leadership and teamwork.
“I have learned a lot of life skills through organizing the backpack drive,” Madison said. “It has taught me to persevere when things felt impossible and remember the children we are going to help.”
Lina said one lesson stands out.
“One thing I learned about when working with two or more people is that communication is key; if you communicate, you can get a lot of things done faster instead of both parties being in the dark and not knowing what is going on,” she said.
