I was in Girl Scouts for over 10 years starting in first grade. It gave me many wonderful opportunities that I feel every girl should get. Here are 5 reasons why your daughter should join a Girl Scout troop.
1. A great place to make friends.
I was always shy as a kid and had a hard time making friends. Girl Scouts gave me an opportunity to come together with girls my age that shared common interests. I can’t guarantee that your daughter will be friends with every girl in the troop but I can personally say that I have one really good friend that I met from Girl Scouts that I am still in contact with to this day. You’d be surprised how diverse a Girl Scout troop is. In my group I had girls that played sports, who were heavily active in their church, outgoing, shy, popular, and some not popular at all. There are many times the girls have to work together on various projects which brings them together. I think that this is a great place to make friends.
2. The opportunity to travel.
Throughout the many years that I was in Girl Scouts I traveled to many different places. Some of the trips that I went on with my troop included visiting Disneyland, Catalina Island, Old Sacramento, the Pacific Ocean, Lake Tahoe, and Moaning Cavern. I went on many camping trips, hiked, explored caves, panned for gold, learned about California history, saw live plays, listened to motivational speakers, and even learned how to prepare for a NASA flight. Being in Girl Scouts gives you the opportunity to travel and experience what the world around us has to offer. All of it is possible because of the fundraising each girl does throughout the year with the troop.
3. Learning to work for what you want.
As mentioned before, Girl Scouts get the opportunity to travel and experience different things because of the hard work they put in. Throughout the year there are opportunities to raise money, for an example selling Girl Scout Cookies. In addition to selling Girl Scout Cookies the troop also has to come up with ideas to raise money for trips. My Girl Scout Troop would hold a community garage sale every year. We would ask for donations from friends and family and then sale everything we received at the garage sale. It was always a huge turn out and many people were happy to donate items they had no use to them anymore because it directly benefited us. Another fundraiser my troop held every year was wrapping Christmas presents. We would wrap Christmas presents for “free” but accepted donations to any that offered. Sometimes we would get a couple dollars per gift, sometimes we would get nothing, and sometimes people would be very generous giving us $20 or so. No matter what we received we were very gracious and happy to help out families during the holidays.
4. Helping the community.
There were many times where my troop would help out the community. We would occasionally go to parks and pick up litter and rake leaves. I personally also volunteered at the local library. I would represent my troop and help the library when they conducted their monthly book sale. Sometimes when we helped the community we would receive badges or donations which was a great incentive. Even if we didn’t receive anything for our help it made us feel good because we could personally see the impact of helping the community.
5. Learning useful skills.
There are many things that a girl can learn while in Girl Scouts. Most of the time when learning these things you receive a badge. Somethings that I learned exclusively through Girl Scouts include skiing, panning for gold, pitching a tent, snorkeling, scrapbooking, how to ride a horse, how to play the trumpet, and how to start a fire. Some of the skills that I learned are great hobbies while other skills I learned are great life skills. For an example, there were badges that we had to learn business skills, such as finance. We also learned how to grow a garden from homemade compost and how to wash dishes with no hot water. Throughout the years you will learn a lot through Girl Scouts and I guarantee that most of the skills learned are things you will do again some time in your life.
