My Favorite Girl Scout Memory

As someone who has been a leader on and off for fifteen years, I have a lot of good Girl Scout memories.  One in particular stands out.


It was my first year as a leader.  The troop met after school at my daughter's public school.  In my area, school-based troops are the norm, and most are in private/Catholic schools.  For the most part, the public schools serve working/lower class kids and for various reasons, they tend not to have troops.  However, my daughter wanted to be a Girl Scout and I figured out that in order for that to happen, I was going to have to be the leader.  I drafted her best friend's mom, who, it turns out, had tried to start a troop a few years earlier, for her older daughter.  That was the era of the three year Brownie program so we started a Brownie troop and opened it to any girls in school.  We got our daughters' friends and ended up with over twenty girls, one of the biggest troops in the Service Unit.

They have graduated from college!  Loved that first troop.

During our second or third meeting the office called back to the cafeteria where we were and said they were sending someone back--they said the Girl Scouts sent them.  A quiet shy little girl and her dad came back and said the Girl Scouts sent them. This was before the era of email and texting and cell phones.  I had steam coming out my ears---were all those private school troops too good for this girl (she attended the next public school over) and did no one think to ask me?  But, what was I going to do at that point, growl at the girl?  So I smiled, told Dad to be back at 5:15 and put her to work on whatever we were doing.  My girls took her in and were sisters to every Girl Scout, even the one who didn't go to their school.

The next year we were at a Service Unit mother-daughter function.  My daughter and I were in the parking lot unloading stuff when the girl and her mom got dropped off (Dad always brought her to meetings).  My daughter gave the girl a hug and her mom walked over and thanked me for allowing the girl in my troop.  She said the girl didn't have any friends at school but that she loved Girl Scouts and she really appreciated the way my girls took her in.

That was the day I decided that I'm never turning a girl away if her parents are willing to register and help, and that if I can take another girl, if asked, I will.  My troop this year has almost as many schools represented as girls, and I think that's a good thing.