Girl Scouts focus on friendship, learning
By Sara Pauff
spauff@ledger-enquirer.com
For Ishani Rewatkar, being a Girl Scout is about more than Thin Mints and Tagalogs. She’s worked on an anti-bullying campaign, creating an educational video to show in classrooms, and a recycling project to help the environment.
“I wanted to help my community and make the world a better place,” she said.
While many people associate the Girl Scouts with their annual cookie sales and camping trips, the scouts do more than that these days, branching out into community service, financial literacy and science and technology education.
“Do you know what the Boy Scouts do? We do it better,” says troop leader Mharlie Jackson. The other girls laugh. “We’re helping the needy, we want to make our environment better, we do a lot recycling projects,” she says.
“People know us for selling cookies, but we help the community, we volunteer. We do different things,” adds scout Aliyah Davis.
Davis attended the scouts’ STEM camp, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and math activities. She learned about robots and rocketry.
Another scout, 11-year-old Gabrielle Farley, talks about how her troop visited the fire department and volunteered with the annual Chattahoochee River clean-up, Help the Hooch. Ishani’s sister, Rohini, completed a community service project for Relay for Life. Jackson remembers learning how to cook over coals during Girl Scout camp. The scouts haven’t completely thrown out old-fashioned crafts and camping skills, she said.
“They bring in the new with the old and try to mix it,” she said. “The younger girls know about cell phones, but they don’t know about making a telephone with a cord and two cans.”
The path toward learning new things and advancing in Girl Scouts is individualized, Davis said. “You set your own path based on what you like to do,” she said. “If you like horseback riding, you can do that. If you like computers, you can do that. What you like to do, you can do that.”
For several girls, being a scout is in the family. Davis’s mother was in the scouts and Rewatkar’s mother was in the Girl Guides in India, an international extension of the Girl Scouts. Jackson got involved with Girl Scouts because her mother works for the organization. She said she thought more girls might stay in the scouts longer if their parents participated in Girl Scout activities too, like the father/daughter dances and berry picking.
“A lot of girls leave. A lot of their parents don’t stick beside them,” she said. “I think a parent who has a child in Girl Scouts should be involved and have that time together.”
“I prefer working with older kids, but I’m still involved. I really want to share that,” adds Carmen Owens, the mother of Rosie, a 5-year-old. She says her daughter, who is just starting scouts as a Daisy, woke up one morning singing the Girl Scout’s friendship song.
“In her heart, she knows she needs to make friends. Society becomes so anti-relationship. This is about building relationships,” she said.
Jackson agreed. “Girl Scouts are your friends.”
Rosie raises her hand and asks to sing the friendship song: Make new friends but keep the old/One is silver and the other gold/A circle’s round, it has no end/ That’s how long I want to be your friend. All the girls join in.
