On Being a Cookie Mom

I was roaming through old posts this morning when I found this wonderful reminder of life the way it was!  It was originally published on Sept. 18, 2013.

I've been a Girl Scout Cookie mom on and off over the last ten years. 

Ten years ago, I was a new arrival in this town, and I had been talked into the job of cookie mom by my daughter's girl scout leader.  I didn't know many people here, but I did think this would be a great way to meet some new people.

I wasn't really sure what the job entailed, but I was reassured that I would be able to attend training for new cookie moms.

When I showed up at the training session, all of the seats were taken.  I found a spot on the floor, pulled out a notebook and began taking notes.

Ten minutes into the meeting, I felt a little tickle on my foot and looked down to see that a mouse had climbed up onto my shoe and had his front paws on my knee.  He was looking up at me with very bright, curious eyes.

The next thing I knew, I was being helped down off the top of the table.

I'm not sure whatever happened to the mouse, but thanks to that mouse, I did meet many new people that night!

A Reluctant Girl Scout Leader

6 years ago, I became a reluctant Girl Scout Leader.  It's been quite a ride.  I've been the unconventional Girl Scout leader.  I've also managed to keep 5 of the 7 girls I began with.  That's actually pretty phenomenal, considering that the girls are teenagers and it's not "cool' to be a Girl Scout.

All of the girls earned their Gold Award.  (Girl Scouting's highest honor).  Each girl did an individual project that tied in with their own individual passions.  Each project required over 80 leadership hours.

Girl Scout Gold Award

Over the weekend, we had our very last meeting.  It was a bittersweet meeting.

We sat and reminisced about all the crazy stuff they'd done over the years.  From the adults getting lost in the corn maze to the day we accidentally called the White House Public Relations Office, to the tour of the State House, laughs rolled on for hours.


They are graduating this year, and they are all headed on to college. All of them have received scholarships of some kind or another.  Each one of them has learned through the years we've been together that once you decide where you want to go, you sit down, make a plan, telling you how you're going to get there, and then follow that plan with stubborn determination, making changes as you find out more about your goal.

I gave them two things to take with them.

Scrapbooks, ready to go!

I made a scrapbook for each one of them.  I struggled through most of last year, trying to get those albums done.  I took the pictures from all the way back when the troop was first formed and they were such little girls.

Our Silver Award Project was making blankets for Project Linus.  So, for each of them, I made a blanket to take with them to college.  They're not big blankets.  They're just enough  to put on your lap, or wrap around you on a cold day and help keep you warm.

Box 'O Blankets

I'm very glad our journey is finished.  It was a wild ride, and I enjoyed almost every single minute of it!

I sincerely hope that if you ever have the opportunity to become a Girl Scout leader, you jump on that opportunity and make the most of it!  It can be frustrating, but the rewards are oh, so amazing.

The opportunity to help young girls define who they are and achieve their goals?

Priceless.

You can read an older post about my musing over Girl Scouts here:
http://mini-van-mom.blogspot.com/2013/09/girl-scouts.html

Juliette Gordon Low

While we were in Savannah, we stopped by the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouting.

I was a Girl Scout for 5 years when I was growing up, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  Camping, cookie sales, lock ins, you name it, I loved it!  I dropped out of Girl Scouts when I started Junior High School, but I always looked fondly back upon my Girl Scout experience.

Fast forward 25 years, and my own daughter joined her first Girl Scout Troop, as a Brownie.  I was not the leader, I was a cookie mom.  Several years later, when the girls were teens, and scouting was hard, the old leaders dropped out, and we were left with a choice: Disband the troop or lead a troop?
I opted to lead.

So, now, here it is 2015, and I have finally made it to the birthplace of scouting's founder.  Girl Scouts has always spent time honoring Juliette (Daisy), but I'd never really had a true appreciation for her, and her determination, until I visited her house.

In many ways, she reminds me of myself.  Stubborn.  Determined.  Unfortunately for her, she was born in an era when women were expected to become devoted wives, and dedicate themselves solely to their husbands.  There were very few opportunities for women to receive an education or make a difference in the world.  Oh, if she had been born 100 years later, the things she would have done!

While touring the house, we were shown art work that she had done.  When she and her husband were sent to England for several years, she wanted to take family portraits with her to hang, as was the custom at that time.  Since there were none that the family was willing to take off of the walls to give to her, she took old cast off portraits from the attic and repainted the faces to look like her family.  Honest to goodness, the portraits were very well done.

The china painting that she had on display was beautiful.  Fine, full of detail, and of better quality than most I have seen from that era.

Sculpture.  Oh my heavens, could that woman sculpt! 

Wood Burning.  She had several old, plain pieces of furniture that she wanted to dress up.  She took a stencil and a wood burner and stenciled in a new design on the drawer fronts of a dresser that was on display in the house.

Daisy didn't begin the Girl Scouts until late in life.  Her marriage had ended in divorce.  She'd had no children, and there was nothing for her to do with her time or energy.  Despondent, she sat at dinner one night and poured out her troubles to a man sitting next to her at a dinner party.  His name was Baden Powell, and he had recently started a movement called the Boy Scouts.  He told her of how he'd had girls attempt to join his group, and of the 2 girls who had managed to successfully infiltrate the boy scouts for over a year before being discovered.  The need for an equivalent program for girls was pronounced.

Daisy went home, and called her friend and announced “Come right over!” “I've got something for the girls of Savannah and all America and all the world and we're going to start it tonight!”.  

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Say what you will about the scouting movement, but at that time in history, a distinct organization that focused on educating women, and encouraging women to do more, learn more, and find out more, was a desperately needed jolt.

Determined to make a difference, Daisy began a movement which has continued on for over 100 years and encouraged young girls to grow, learn, explore, and reach out to their full potential.

Pretty awesome legacy, don't you think?

(Wish I could show you pictures of her art work, but photography was prohibited in the home itself, and I am unable to find any images that are freely available on the web.)

Another Gold Award Project

I am so proud of the girls in my Girl Scout Troop!  We have 5 girls in our troop.  They are all Juniors in high school.  4 of them are pursuing their Gold Awards.  (And I am an advisor to one other girl who is not in my troop, who is currently a Senior in high school.)

Today is another Gold Award Project!

This young lady is holding a baton twirling workshop for younger girls today!

She has been twirling and competing since she was a wee little one.

Her hope is that she will show kids a new and different way to get exercise, and maybe even get some of them hooked on twirling at the same time!  The ultimate goal is to help combat childhood obesity while having fun.

I'm headed out in a few minutes.  I am working the registration table this morning.

Who knows, maybe I'll learn how to twirl? 

ON Being a Cookie Mom

I've been a Girl Scout Cookie mom on and off over the last ten years. 

Ten years ago, I was a new arrival in this town, and I had been talked into the job of cookie mom by my daughter's girl scout leader.  I didn't know many people here, but I did think this would be a great way to meet some new people.

I wasn't really sure what the job entailed, but I was reassured that I would be able to attend training for new cookie moms.

When I showed up at the training session, all of the seats were taken.  I found a spot on the floor, pulled out a notebook and began taking notes.

Ten minutes into the meeting, I felt a little tickle on my foot and looked down to see that a mouse had climbed up onto my shoe and had his front paws on my knee.  He was looking up at me with very bright, curious eyes.

The next thing I knew, I was being helped down off the top of the table.

I'm not sure whatever happened to the mouse, but thanks to that mouse, I did meet many new people that night!

Girl Scouts

I've been a Girl Scout leader for several years now.  I took over when our old troop leader said that she didn't want to do it anymore, and refused to sign the paperwork to be a leader for another year.  It looked as if our troop was going to fold, so I agreed to become the leader.

Over the years, the troop has gone from being led by one person to more of a co-op arrangement.  All of the parents have signed on as Assistant Leaders, and we all take responsibility for leading meetings and getting things accomplished.

As the girls grew into high school, the challenge of being leaders has been easier than we expected.  High school is the age of girl led programming.  In short, the girls take over the meetings.  They decide what they want to do next, and our job is to help them find the resources to reach their goals.

It's been wonderful watching them grow, and take on responsibilities and reach their goals.

When we started our Bronze Award, it was a project initiated by our then-leader.  The girls initiated a wonderful project, and earned their Bronze Award.  They were in 6th grade, and they were unstoppable.

Predictably, we lost a few girls through middle school.  The programming changed, and even worse, the grade levels changed.  Our girls were caught in the middle of the transition.  They became Cadettes at the end of their 6th grade year, and that was when the new age guidelines were handed down from national. Previously, Cadettes were in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades.  Now, they were to be in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades.  This presented a huge challenge for us.  Two years to complete the requirements for the Silver Award, find a project, and complete said project.

We all quailed at the prospect.  We went to the first Silver Award meeting we could find held by our council, and I was almost in tears.  Since that time, Girl Scouts has changed the Silver Award requirement to the completion of a Journey.  At that time, there was a long list of badges, experiences, leadership demands, and community service requirements to be met. 

I still remember that meeting with the parents and the girls as we looked at the requirements.  The girls were amazing.  "We are going to do this."  They said.  "Nothing will stop us." 

It was at this point that we became a co-op troop.  Each parent took a requirement, and agreed to research it.  We as parents then sat down and figured out the mechanics of the requirement, and the parent who researched that requirement was the one who presented it to the girls, arranged the trips, and followed it through to it's conclusion.

Once we finished the requirements, we had the girls sit down and research possibilities for projects.  They presented their ideas, voted on suggestions, and chose Project Linus.  Much as the parents had done, assigning roles to meet the badge qualifications, the girls sat down and divided up the responsibilities for funding, researching, etc. 

To this day, I am still confounded by the fact that it took us less than a year to finish this.  I won't go into all of the details here, but I will say that the girls completed 80 blankets for Project Linus.  They even learned how to sew in the process - a skill that is no longer taught in the public schools!

They bridged on to Seniors, and began their Senior Journey.  We finished that two years ago, and the girls began to look for Gold Award projects.  Keep in mind, Gold Award projects are individual projects, and they must have a long lasting impact on the community.  Projects must be found, and project proposals submitted to council and approved by council before work can begin on them.

Now, fast forward to this past summer.  We still have 5 girls in our troop.  They are in 11th grade.
All 5 have submitted proposals and had them approved by council.

The first project went off without a hitch in late July. 

Today is the second project.   

Believe it or not, we have at least one, if not two, projects scheduled to happen every month from now until December.

What continues to amaze me most of all is that these girls are all in High School.  They are all in 11th grade.  And they all choose to remain in Girl Scouting.  Even with the commitments to sports, band, drama, friends, and school work, these girls are still involved in Girl Scouting.  They are all honor roll students.  To me, this is unbelievable.  When I took over this troop, I honestly never expected it to last more than a year.  And here we are, years later.  Unbelievable.

I am so very, very proud of all of these girls.  They are AMAZING!!!

And the other parents in this troop who have stepped up and helped to keep our troop running and help the girls achieve their dreams?  They've done it all while balancing careers, other commitments, other children, cancer treatments, health problems, and the sickness of their own parents?

They are PHENOMENAL.

None of this could have happened without the combined efforts of us all. 

It really does take a village. 

Girl Scouts

My daughter has been a Girl Scout since she started first grade.  Brownies, Juniors, Cadettes.. she's been there.  Overnight events at the museums, up all night events at the Mall, mucking out horse stalls, and helping younger kids at Day Camp, she's been a part of everything.

Last night marked a major milestone in her Girl Scouting career.  She earned her Silver Award.

The Silver Award is not just handed out to anyone.  It is an earned award.  A project which benefits the community is conceived.  Hours of leadership and service must be earned.  40 hours must be spent on the project itself.  The write up must be sent to council, and then council decides whether or not the project will receive the Silver Award.  Many times, the paperwork is sent back to the girl for revisions and/or corrections.  Once the girl receives the letter telling her she has received the award she (or her leader) must take the award in to council in order to purchase the award.  They won't give the award out unless if the girl has her letter.

Her troop decided they were going to make blankets for Project Linus. 

If you are not familiar with Linus, they are an organization that makes blankets to give to children who are in need of comfort, either because of traumatic injury, illness, or otherwise in need.  The blankets are made by volunteers throughout the country. 

Our girls decided to work with the local chapter of Linus.  We received permission from council to hold a lemonade stand fundraiser to raise money to purchase the fleece for blankets. We raised $45.  The girls were very disappointed, as we thought that we would only be able to make 4 or 5 blankets with that money.

And then, the strangest thing happened.  We posted on facebook that we needed fleece for Linus.  Fleece came out of the woodwork!  People called and donated fleece.  Our local chapter of Linus had just received a huge fleece donation that they gave to us.  The church office would call and tell me to "Come and pick up this load of fleece before we trip over it!".  I would come home from running errands and find piles of fleece, unmarked, sitting on my front stoop.

By the time all was said and done, we had 50 blankets.  These were not the small, infant size blankets.  These were full size blankets that would easily cover a teenager, with some room to spare. 

But then, we sat down and realized that we had not spent the money that we raised for purchasing fleece.  And so, we went out and bought more fleece.

Another 20 blankets were made. 

In total, we made and donated 75 blankets for Project Linus.

Absolutely amazing.

http://www.projectlinus.org/index.html