Garden of Growing Girls
By the time you were twelve how many community events did you organize? How many fundraisers did you plan and execute? How many budget related decisions did you make and how many local business people did you know by name (not counting family and family friends)?
Yeah, me either.
And before you were in sixth grade, had you travelled hundreds of miles on an overnight train, with a group of close friends, to a state where you’d never been, to visit a living museum and submerge yourself in the history of our early colonies?
Me either.
When you were twelve, did you think you were capable of any of these things? Did you think you’d be allowed and trusted to accomplish any of these things? Think about it – did you even have reason to ponder any of this?
Twelve years old is 6th or 7th grade.
I know a group of 10 girls, twelve years old, who have done these things already. Who know the owners and managers of many of the businesses in their town by name and aren’t afraid to talk to them in passing in the market. Who have imagined and planned events to benefit organizations in their local community. Who have volunteered their time to help out with festivals in their town, or to serve food at the local “community dinner.” Who have travelled afar to learn, and who have begun to think on a very wide, very worldly scale.
They are the Girl Scout troop that I help to lead.
Yes, Girl Scouts.
I know it.
When I was in 5th grade, I gave up Girl Scouts. Well, why not? It’s not as if we ever DID anything. We met once a week, brought our 50¢ dues, sat on our sit-upons in the dim living room of our troop leader, ate a snack of cookies and juice and, I guess, talked about school and whatever was on our mind. I think in the years I was a Girl Scout, I earned 3 badges. We never went camping, we never did any community service, we never traveled or learned new skills. I think we did some crafts, but I don’t remember any of them. By the time we were in 5th grade, other kids looked at us funny when we said we were still Girl Scouts. We were too old then – too old to be Girl Scouts and still be cool.
So as my co-leader and I have worked with these girls over the years (most of the troop has been together since first grade) we’ve made it our mission to make Girl Scouts what we think it should be: the growth of future leaders, of girls who are not afraid, who are creative, who are individuals, who think wide-open, who will be assets to their communities and proud of themselves because of who they’ve become.
In order to achieve that, we first have to have as our foremost mission to make Girl Scouts what they think it should be. It has to be enjoyable and meaningful for the girls. It has to be their Girl Scouts, not ours. It has to be about what they want to learn, what they want to do, what they want to accomplish. It has to be something they’re proud to say they’re a part of.
Lofty missions.
In order to accomplish all this, you’d really have to be passionate about it, wouldn’t you? I mean, you couldn’t just show up to a troop meeting with some doilies and glue and expect the girls to transform into world leaders.
No.
It’s hard work.
It requires a lot of thought, even some agonizing now and then, lots of time. It requires finesse – we’re talking about pre-teen girls here (think roller coaster, on a hot day, with storm clouds). It requires the kind of patience that you don’t hang from a hook at the end of a day. And as they get older, it requires more and more and more of you.
But the rewards are greater and greater and greater.
And so, in the last two years especially, as our girls have accomplished far more than I ever thought possible; as we’ve watched them gain skills, confidence, character; as we’ve seen them form a team, always watching each other’s backs; and as we’ve watched them blossoming as individuals; I’ve come to realize that I no longer do this just because I’m a troop Mom with a daughter in the gang, or because I’m buried knee-deep in it. I don’t do it just because my co-leader is a dear friend. I do it because I believe in it. I believe in these girls. I believe they can do whatever they set their minds to, and I believe in helping them set their minds to huge things. I believe in helping them over the stepping stones to bigger and bigger.
All this believing. I think that’s called passion.
Tags: Just thinking...
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