Although Girl Scouts are known nationwide for their trademark cookie sales, many people do not know the work they do throughout the year to give back to their community. OH Scouts are among the thousands worldwide working toward prestigious awards like the Girl Scout Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards for service projects in their community.
“I really enjoy being part of the program, I think it has taught me a lot of developmental skills and life skills that I wouldn’t get anywhere else,” said senior and Girl Scouts Ambassador Rhiannon Reynolds. “It’s allowed me to build projects for my community too, currently I am working on my Gold Award.”
The Girl Scout mission is to teach girls to “take risks, trust their gut, and team up with others for good”, which the program encourages by rewarding outstanding members with the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards for extensive community service. Many Scouts achieve the Bronze Award, but few reach the coveted Gold Award, which is secured through dedication and leadership in the local area.
“Throughout high school [Girl Scouts] will have the opportunity to work on our Gold Award, where we set aside 100 hours and dedicate it to a cause,” said freshman Aubyn Holtz, “And we find an adult sponsor.”
These awards take months of careful planning, research, leadership, and problem-solving to make these projects come to fruition. Scouts observe opportunities for improvement in their community and then create a service project to solve that issue for future generations. This planning starts as early as freshmen year of high school but isn’t completed for most Scouts until they graduate.
“Since the Fox River goes through Oswego, I was thinking of teaching little kids how to fish –like crawfishing– because it’s really fun and I can work with the Oswego Park District people on that,” said Holtz.
“At a local park in our community, they do a nature preschool program and the program has been kind of run down for the past few years,” said Reynolds. “I added new stations and abilities to help revamp the park and be able to better align with the nature preschool’s program.”
These awards are not the only things that Girl Scouts do; they also attend numerous camps, meetings, and go on fun trips together.
“Over the summer, we have summer camps,” said freshman Jia Nair. “We get to spend like five days going to different places and camping, then we get to help little girls and teach them stuff.”
The Girl Scouts program is all about preparing girls for adulthood and teaching them the skills they will need to be the world’s next leaders. Because of this, troops are encouraged to do activities that correspond to badges and critical life skills that they are trying to gain, like performance and tech skills.
“We do these things called Journies in a Day where we just set aside a day to do something like coding,” said Nair. “We are going to the Paramount Theater to watch The Waitress, so we get to do fun stuff too.”
No look into the Girl Scout program is complete without a deep dive into the cookie-selling process, however, which is much more than a fundraiser. Girl Scouts, no matter their age or rank, all participate in this nationwide annual fundraiser to collect donations for their troops.
“It’s a lot of hours in the cold,” said Holtz. “But we actually get a lot of sales from that- we usually get about $400 per booth, so it’s hard work but it’s worth it in the end because all of the money we raise goes back to the troop.”
While many people enjoy the cookies as a sweet treat, they also give much-needed financial support for Scouts looking to go on trips and participate in camps.
“Cookie booth is a great way to bond with each other, even though it is cold outside,” said Reynolds. “It really helps with communication and money-handling skills, we even saved up enough last year to go to the Girl Scout National Convention.”
Aside from the priceless life skills that Girl Scout projects provide, the program gives girls something invaluable- the gift of friendship. No matter what age Scouts are or what year they joined the program, they all create lifelong friendships and bonds.
“We feel like a family,” said Nair. “Because of Girl Scouts, I was able to meet these girls better than if I was just meeting people normally at school. It feels like we’re actually sisters, were all so close.”
To join your local troop and find out more about Scouts, readers can visit the national Girl Scout website.
My name is Sasha Pankuch and I am a junior here at OHS. This is my first year with 42Fifty too. I am very involved here at OHS; I am on the board of Student Council, I play the saxophone in the Panther Marching Band, and am a member of multiple honors societies!
