SHELVED—Agoura High School senior Katie Clabeaux, far right, and her friends demonstrate the sturdiness of the shelves at the Manna food pantry. Katie reorganized the shelves at Manna for her Girl Scout Gold Award project Katie Clabeaux, a senior at Agoura High School, helped to reorganize the shelving at the Manna food pantry as her project for her Girl Scout Gold Award, the organization's highest honor.

Katie, in her 12th year of Girl Scouting, was looking for a project to do for her Gold Award. She went to the Manna food bank on a Saturday morning and watched the people being served. The pantry is housed in a converted garage which has limited space for efficient serving.

Katie talked to John Gorham, executive director at Manna about what project would benefit the charity the most. He wanted to reorganize the shelving so that the pantry could stock the shelves and serve customers at the same time.

Katie drew up a plan and obtained donations of metal racking from Costco Corporate, Costco Westlake, and the Do-it Center. The four industrial-sized racking units were 6 feet tall and 16 feet wide.

Katie and a group of volunteers worked on the remodeling on Sept. 13 and 14. Albertsons, Gelson's, Ralphs, Trader Joe's, and Vons donated food and water for the volunteers and also to stock the new shelves.

When removing existing shelves on the first day, Katie found that there was no flooring underneath. She received the needed flooring materials and tools from Home Depot in Newbury Park. The volunteers laid 24 square feet of flooring and also contact paper for the shelves.

The project used a collective total of 72 hours among the volunteers.

Only 5 percent of the eligible Girl Scouts receive the Gold Award. The award requirements include a major project, earning three interest patches, completing 30 hours of leadership, and exploring career options for an additional 40 hours.