Scouting offers more than camping, cookies
POINT OF VIEW | IT CAN HELP SHAPE LIVES
In 2005, when I was in kindergarten, my mom asked if I wanted to be a Girl Scout. She told me all about her memories of selling cookies and camping. I thought it sounded like fun so I signed up. I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted that 10 years later, my journey in Girl Scouts would have led me to meet my best friend, become the co-author of two children’s books and be the CEO of a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
We moved to Oklahoma when I moved up to Brownies, the second level of Girl Scouts. It was then that the troop I’ve been in for nine years was assembled and I met the girls who would come to be some of the greatest friends I will possibly ever have. It’s because of these friends and the projects we’ve done together that I’ve had the opportunity to write articles for a Girl Scout magazine, co-author and co-illustrate two award-winning children’s books and be led to realize what my passions are in life.
If my friends and I wouldn’t have co-authored the first children’s book for our Silver Award and if we hadn’t been volunteering for Oklahoma Blue Thumb to get our Girl Scout Community Service Bars, I would’ve never been honored with the Prudential Spirit of Community Award. It was on this award trip that I met Audrey, a girl my age from Nebraska who had a project on migratory birds. Seeing her care about these birds inspired me to want to do a project on a topic that, if neglected, made me really mad. This led me to identify the problem that my Gold Award is based on — the lack of military buglers available to play Taps — and create what would become the nonprofit that I’m the CEO of: the Youth Trumpet & Taps Corps. Without starting the nonprofit, I wouldn’t have been able to stand in the middle of Grand Central Station in New York City and give my elevator pitch about my organization to random people waiting for their trains. And since I’m an introvert, of course, this experience really still stands out as the most uncomfortable and bravest thing I’ve ever done.
It’s because of Girl Scouts that I learned how to talk in front of people, to give interviews and be interviewed, to identify the problems in my community that I really care about, and take action to solve those problems.
I’m not saying sign your daughter up for Girl Scouts so she can be the CEO of a nonprofit, because that may not be what she wants to do. Sign her up because it will give her the tools she needs to identify her own dreams and make those dreams happen. That in itself makes the world an exponentially better place.