Riley Elkins, Ella Hale, Nicole Rodriguez Barrantes, and Payton Tomberlin of Girl Scout Troop 33002 at St. Francis Xavier Church recently completed their Girl Scout Silver Award Project. They collected plastic caps and lids to recycle into a Buddy Bench for the St. Francis Xavier playground. The bench will serve as a safe place to say, “I need a buddy.” The purpose is to help kids find and build friendships. Also, every cap or lid that went into the bench does not go into the landfill. The 8-foot bench required 250 pounds of bottle caps. Many members of the parish and student body helped collect the tops for the project. After collecting the tops, the girls had to sort and clean the tops before taking the tops to Green Tree Plastics in Evansville, Indiana for them to manufacture the bench. This permanent fixture at St. Francis Xavier will give church members and students a sense of pride, knowing that they did something great not only for their church, school, and community, but also for the planet on which they live.