Oldest Living Girl Scout Turning 110

Boston's Fox 25 reports that this month, Milly England - The oldest living Girl Scout - is turning 110 years old. Family and fellow Girl Scouts threw a big bash where she was honored as the oldest living Girl Scout. She recalled some of her Scouting memories from as far back as 1914 - almost as old as the organization itself! Check out the video for a peek inside her party. Happy Birthday, for sure!

Butterfly Garden for Silver Awards

(via blog.girlscouts.org)

Head on over to California's Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and read a story about two Girl Scouts working to improve the conditions at a local shelter that provides temporary housing and assistance to homeless families and their children. To acquire the Girl Scout Silver Award - which is the second highest award in the Girl Scouts - Veronica Osborn, 15, and Camille Goodwin, 13, spent a recent Saturday planting a drought friendly butterfly garden for residents and their children staying in the building. The award requires the girls - who are in Troop 12164 - to complete three projects for the community. The garden was the girls' main project.



Awesome work Veronica and Camille! Do you have stories you'd like to share about your Girl Scout Silver Award Project? Email tanya_ott@yahoo.com with details.

Summer Camp Programs

Camp Cottaquilla’s Summer Camp Programs will begin May 21, 2010 and run through June 18, 2010.

There is still time to register. Please go to our web site to view the Camp Brochure.

Hope to see you this summer!

Kay Henderson, Camp Director

Girl Scout Google Doodle Artist!

(via blog.girlscouts.org)

Looks like there is a Girl Scout Finalist in the Doodle 4 Google Contest! Her name is Indira and she is eight years old. Voting closed yesterday. No word yet on how she did!

Girl Scouts is "Getting Empowered"

Girl Scouts is partnering with the National Urban League on its “I am Empowered” campaign. The campaign is a yearlong public service initiative designed to rally millions of Americans around education, employment, housing and healthcare. It’s all part of the National Urban Leagues centennial celebration and anyone can take the “I am Empowered” pledge.

The pledge says, "I pledge to responsibly commit my time and talent to ensure that the nation is empowered to achieve the following goals by 2025:


•Every American child is ready for college, work and life.


•Every American has access to jobs with a living wage and good benefits.


•Every American lives in safe, decent, affordable and energy efficient housing on fair terms.


•Every American has access to quality and affordable health care solutions."
So take the pledge, and check out the National Urban League’s cool video below:



The National Urban League is the nation’s oldest and largest community-based movement devoted to empowering African Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream. Girl Scouts has partnered with the National Urban League in the past, and has a long history of diversity and inclusion. The first Girl Scout troop for African American girls was formed in 1917, and by the 1950s, GSUSA had begun a national effort to desegregate all Girl Scout troops. In 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. described Girl Scouts as “a force for desegregation.”

(via blog.girlscouts.org)

Defending Dignity, Fighting Poverty

The GSUSA blog has a letter from Hosanna Kabakoro - a 2009 National Young Women of Distinction. Hosanna recently attended the CARE Conference on Global Poverty and Women's Issues in Washington D.C. and below is her letter - enjoy:

This week, thanks to Girl Scouts of the USA, my fellow Young Woman of Distinction Vivian and I were privileged to attend the international CARE Conference on Global Poverty and Women's Issues in Washington D.C.

CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. It places special focus on working alongside poor women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE's community-based efforts to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of war and natural disasters, and helps people rebuild their lives.

The Keynote speaker at the conference was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who encouraged conference participants to lobby Congress to authorize funding to campaign against child marriage, maternal death and hunger in developing nations. Mrs. Clinton took time to promote the administration's goals for eliminating poverty and disease through nutrition.

Other speakers and guests included the First Ladies of Sierra Leone, Kenya and Mozambique, who shared how they and their husbands are starting schools for girls, initiating village-level micro-financing projects and working to provide more effective pre and post natal care to rural and impoverished women. Christie Turlington and Maria Bello were also present, and awarded special recognition awards to women who are playing fundamental roles in reaching other women with solutions.

We learned that more than a billion people live in poverty. One in three children in the world live in an undernourished state. We also learned that there is hope. As we focus on women, and encourage them to join in initiatives directed at them, we will continue to see progress.

Girl Scouts was invited to share how youth are contributing and Vivian and I led a roundtable group where we were able to discuss how our Gold Award projects were birthed and what the results of our projects have been.

It was a wonderful time of sharing and getting to meet other female activists. I left feeling educated, informed and empowered to continue making a difference.

Girl Scouts & Families: We Need Your Help!

The 5th Annual End-of-Year School Supply Recycling Project

Scouts & Families: We need your help once again with this project, taking place throughout the Vestavia Hills school system, to sort through the students’ and schools’ donations on

Tuesday afternoon, May 25th
3:30-5:30
Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church

The work will be easy enough for Scouts of all ages -- sorting through the bags of pencils, papers, notebooks, and more, that are being collected from around the area schools to be donated to the students and classrooms in the heart of the Alabama Black Belt.

Did you know?

• The Alabama Black Belt consists of a group of primarily agricultural counties, with dark rich soil, extending east to west across Central Alabama, that currently experience high rates of poverty, illiteracy and infant mortality.

• Unemployment in Alabama’s Black Belt counties is 16.2%. More than a quarter of the work force (25.1%) is unemployed in Wilcox County alone.

• In Wilcox County (where Gee's Bend is located), the median household income is $16,646, compared to $50,233 for the country -- nearly 40% of the population is below the poverty level.

• In Selma (a prosperous community by comparison), the median household income is $21,261, while unemployment is at 18.2%, nearly twice the national rate.

• 8 Black Belt counties are among the 100 poorest counties in the United States.

• The state Education Budget cut money for classroom supplies; Black Belt schools will be especially hard hit.

We hope each of you can spend at least one hour helping out this very worthy cause—
IT WON’T HAPPEN WITHOUT YOU!

This community project is made possible by the cooperation of local businesses, schools and organizations including:

Publix; Vestavia Hills Girl Scouts; Two Men and a Truck; Friends of Hale County;
Vestavia Hills United Methodist Church;and the Vestavia Hills School System.

Any questions?
Susan Thomas @ 822-4852

Vestavia Girl Scouts Earn Bronze Awards

Troop 145 members Olivia Fulmore, Dawn Van Camp, Kanika Tiwari, Natalie Headrick, Lyndsey Shelton and Bailey McHale earned their Bronze Award this year by sponsoring an event called Caroling for Cats and Canines. They researched the needs of the Greater Birmingham Humane Society (i.e. food, toys, towels, etc) and made fliers asking for donations in exchange for Christmas Carols. They blanketed the Derby Downs neighborhood with fliers, then returned two weeks later to sing carols and collect donations. All told, they collected more than 200 items, which were then donated to the shelter. On their shelter visit the girls learned about caring for animals and opportunities to volunteer for the teen program. Several of the girls plan to become volunteers once they turn 12.

Savannah Gibilisco, Emma Holmes, Samantha Jesse, Meredith Leeming, Hannah Lessem, Olivia Lumpkin, Katie Woods and Greta Wistuk of Troop 445 chose to help the Oak Mountain Wildlife Center for their Bronze Award project. Each spring the Oak Mountain Wildlife Center has several baby song birds that come into the center and need rehabilitation. In order to keep them safe and secure, the bird cages need nets—so the girls chose to make the nets for the cages. Making the nets included cutting, sewing and pulling elastic through the nets. The girls enjoyed knowing that they were doing good things for the animals and enjoyed working as a team. Even though the project seemed overwhelming at times, the girls were proud of their accomplishment and learned new things while also making an impact.

Troop 141 members Stephanie Tunnell, Anna Richardson, Abbey Romp, Haley Lockhart, Cameron Hughes and Elizabeth Baker learned that bottle caps are not always properly disposed of can be thrown in the ocean and cause sea animals to choke. For their Bronze Award project, the troop decided they would collect and recycle bottle caps. The girls sent a note home at a local elementary school to let the students know about their project. Their instructions were to put the bottle caps in Ziploc bags in multiples of five and ten. They handed out baskets for the bottle caps to be put in and at the end of every two weeks they collected them and counted them and then turned over the bottle caps to be recycled. Over nine weeks, these Girl Scouts collected more than 52,000 bottle caps. They liked that they could help the earth, but also wished they could have spent more time at the school teaching the students more about the importance of recycling. The girls really felt a sense of accomplishment that they had made a difference in their world by helping protect animals that might have been in danger from the bottle caps.

Oak Mountain Girls Trot with Sea Turtles

(via girlscoutsnca.blogspot.com)

Troop 188 members Erin Clarke, Mary Elizabeth Carlton, Victoria Huddleston, Ashley Rushton, Anna Caroline Griffith, Shelby Gustin and Cameron Kelley have just returned from Savannah, Georgia. The girls enjoyed a fun weekend filled with earning badges and giving service hours. Some highlights of the trip include visiting the house of Juliet Gordon Lowe and participating in the 5K Turtle Trot. After the race they girls watched as two loggerhead sea turtles were released back into the ocean after being rehabilitated. The girls also climbed the lighthouse on Tybee Island and ate at the famous Paula Dean’s restaurant

GSUSA Dedicates Native Plant Garden

(via blog.girlscouts.org)

Girl Scouts of the USA dedicated the Elliott Native Plant Garden at the Edith Macy Conference Center today in honor of Herford N. and Priscilla Elliott and their family’s longtime efforts to help develop girl leaders who value and protect wildlife and the environment.

The Elliott family, through the Herford N. Elliott Trust Fund, has supported GSUSA’s Elliott Wildlife Values Project since 1977. The dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by GSUSA and Girl Scout council staff members, as well as former Elliott Wildlife Values Project managers.

“We are so grateful to the Elliott family for their support of Girl Scouts,” said Florence Corsello, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration at GSUSA. “The outdoors and respecting and appreciating nature are an essential part of the Girl Scout experience, and it’s more than fitting that we would honor the Elliotts and their longtime commitment to Girl Scouting with a beautiful garden and a beautiful setting like the Edith Macy Conference Center.”

The mission of the Elliott Wildlife Values Project is to develop girls as leaders of both wildlife conservation and environmental stewardship efforts, who positively impact their communities and the world. The project fosters the Girl Scout mission of building girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place. Girls develop science, outdoor, and leadership skills through girl-led, cooperative activities, in which they learn by doing. In the process, they discover a strong sense of self, develop positive values, and gain an understanding of their important role in caring for wildlife and for our earth’s natural resources; connect with nature, the outdoors, and their local and global communities; liaise with environmental experts; and investigate career opportunities; and Take action to identify community and environmental needs, positively impact the environment, and educate and inspire others to act as stewards of the earth and its wildlife.

The project supports local Girl Scout councils, committees, and volunteers globally through program development, membership and volunteer development, learning opportunities and consultative services, grants to councils, and collaboration with organizations and agencies.

“Millions of girls have benefited from the work of the Elliott Wildlife Values Project,” - said Jodi Schwarzer, Project Manager, Elliott Wildlife Values Project at GSUSA. “The Elliott family’s support has been instrumental in building our national
environmental and outdoor programming.”

The garden, which is located near the Great Hall in an area of the conference center known as Sleepy Hollow, features a variety of native plants and places where visitors can view local wildlife and engage in quiet reflection. The garden was funded by a grant from Bank of New York Mellon.