One Hundred Years of Existence Wasted? From forty, it went to twenty; even then, it went to simply five. Throughout my eleven years of being a Girl Scout, I can honestly say that the possibility of Girl Scouts eventually diminishing would be one of the greatest disappointments of my life. In The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s article “Girl Scouts’ Financial and Leadership Woes Threaten 100-Year-Old Group”, authors Holly Hall and Suzanne Perry portend the difficulties that jeopardized the continuance of Girl Scouts. The memories of my Girl Scouting years seem to eventually fade into memories of the general organization if the continuation of decreasing support perseveres.
At forty girls in a troop, I can remember the nervous, yet excited jitters right before walking into my first Girl Scout meeting; the look of pride in my mother’s eyes when I got my first daisy smock. Timid little steps shuffled across the bridge, a seemingly new and sturdy overpass that was longer than my body, as a woman in the center of a trefoil membership pin replaced my daisy shaped membership pin. Although we were first introduced to the OVAL campsite in April of 2002 as a Daisy, we had done the equivalent to nothing experience wise. The year of 2003, however, as a Brownie, was the most exhilarating few hours of my life. Granted that I had been on family camping trips since I was a toddler, hiking a few miles with a large group of twenty children was considered adventurous. A two and a half mile hike later, the most magnificent, in a five year old’s perspective, waterfall lay in the center of a spring wonderland. Surrounded by ethereal trees the vivid shades ranging from chartreuse to lincoln green, the twenty-four foot ephemeral waterfall delicately trickling down drops between the eroded rocks. Oblivious to the excited chattering around me, I observed, enraptured by the sheer beauty of nature, hoping that this camp would never go away so that I could have just that one moment of solitude to simply relax and appreciate everything.
At twenty girls in a troop, I can remember the narcissistic smirk upon my face as I opened the doors to my first Girl Scout meeting as a pompous sixth grader; the look of mild exasperation in my mother’s eyes when I received my Cadette sash in the newly merged Troop 20460. Confident strides across the seemingly pathetic footbridge, a miniature overpass destroyed by haphazardly written names of Girl Scouts both younger and older than I was. With this vainglorious thinking, I did everything in my power to distance myself from the word “Girl Scouts” in sixth grade. When asked about Girl Scout candy and nuts or cookies, I would simply sneer and say a simple, yet distasteful remark about Girl Scouts before abruptly changing the topic. I was ashamed to be a Girl Scout simply because my troop had merged with another, totaling twenty scouts. My original troop alone included forty scouts, and goodness knows how many scouts were in the merging group, and that alone was what terrified me. Consider me a typical pre-teenager, but acceptance from people was all that mattered for me, and if Girl Scouts was a factor to my ‘popularity’, I would have denounced my allegiance immediately. Likewise, every other Girl Scout seemed to have castigate the organization as a whole. A sixth grader in Girl Scouts? What an adolescent thought! Hardly anyone had the courage to speak up and defend Girl Scouting; it was as if there were an unspoken agreement between every scout to never speak of it in the public. We had all shared one thought: Girl Scouts is declining and there’s no point in pledging
