by Sarah Lane
Girl Scout Troop 948
TC Tribune Guest Writer
In a recent survey of high school girls in our area, 70% named “cookies” as the first word they associate with Girl Scouts, and for the first word they associate with Boy Scouts, 75% named a skill boys learn through scouting such as camping, canoeing, being respectful, or tying knots. While having a reputation for delicious cookies is not a bad thing, there is much more to being a Girl Scout then the fundraiser.
Girl Scouts is a program for girls from Kindergarten age onward, where they learn how to work with a team to achieve a common goal and promise to help people at all times as well as strive to make the world a better place. Various badges are awarded throughout the program for service projects and for learning different skills. They force girls to try new things, often outside their comfort zones and show real-life applications from Astronomy to Adventure Sports to First Aid.
The capstone of the Girl Scout program is the Girl Scout Gold Award. This prestigious award is the highest honor a Girl Scout can earn and is bestowed upon a high-school age girl who has proven themselves through various badges, and is a leader for a community service project of around eighty hours or more. This award is equivalent to Boy Scout Eagle Scout Award, but is not as well known. The Girl Scout program creates responsible, caring, open-minded girls who are ready to take on the world and live to their fullest potential.