A BUNCH OF SCRUNCH … Pictured with Sandy Gordon of the Montpelier Parks and Recreation Department, Jenna Clinger displays a small sample of the hundreds of scrunchies that she has sold.
By: Timothy Kays
When the final bell of spring rings in the schools to signal the start of the long awaited summer vacation, kids hit the bricks with a lot on their minds. What fun activities are available? Where can one hang with their buds? Maybe a road trip to Cedar Point or a water park is in the offing. So much time and so much to do…anything but work, right? That’s not the modus operandi of Montpelier’s Jenna Clinger.
The seventh grade daughter of Jeremy and Jill Clinger, Jenna is the 2019 Teen Miss Montpelier. She may be soft spoken, but she lets her actions do all the talking for her. While many of her classmates were enjoying the recently passed summer, Jenna was busy working on a fundraising project.
What exactly is this project? “I make scrunchies to sell them,” Jenna said, “…because our park program has lunches in the summer for kids who can’t afford their own lunch. So we get all the proceeds that we get, and we give all of it to the park so we can help pay for their lunches.”
The making of scrunchies is an art form that Jenna has down through repetition. “We have to cut fabric,” she explained. “Then we give it to my Aunt Cheryl, and she helps sew it because she has a sewing machine. Then we just put in elastic, and then sew it back together. We look for fabrics that we think everybody will like, so we have a good variety for people to look for.”
Okay, so these scrunchies are designed to go into the hair of a stylish girl, right? Wrong, “…because you can wear them on your wrist.” Jenna said. “Sometimes girls nowadays, they give the boys they like or their crush, they give them the scrunches. So it doesn’t have to be for your hair.”
A scrunchie is not a high-dollar implement, so when the sales totals rang up a $1,700 donation to the lunch program, it more than proved that Jenna has had her nose to the grindstone over the summer.
Look for Jenna and her scrunchies at the annual Montpelier Old Tyme Holiday Gathering on November 23. She does custom orders, so stop on by and help provide a lunch with a scrunch.
Timothy can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com