Among increasing worries about money and financial markets, here's a sweet, inspiring story from the Chicago Tribune: A group of Girl Scouts from River Forest have resurrected a convent Garden at Dominican University, which makes its home in the suburb just west of Chicago.
Sister Jeanne Crapo, who taught at the college, had tended to the "secret garden" until 1998, but has since developed crippling arthritis. For the first summer in 10 years, thanks to the 14 sixth graders in Troop 4005, nuns, professors, and students can once again enjoy the garden, which had been overrun by weeds.
And once again, the old lesson of doing service, you get more than you give, held true for the girls.
"This age, 11 years old, I think it's such an important age," troop leader Frances Kraft told the Tribune. "You've got to keep pulling them out of the iPods and the me-me-me focus, everything their friends and the media are telling them. … The whole context here is you are part of a much bigger thing; it's not just what's inside. You need to bring out and share your gifts. Here in the garden they work together."
