“Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place”.
Girl Scouts of the Sierra Nevada Outreach 2010 As troop leaders for the Girl Scouts of the Sierra Nevada’s Outreach Program, we see many girls who are assigned adult responsibilities at home. These girls are often responsible for watching and caring for younger siblings on a daily basis. For many of these girls, their hour spent with the Girl Scouts is a short but needed reprieve from their household tasks and a time when they can just be a kid. If it were not for the financial aid provided by the Girl Scouts of the Sierra Nevada, many of them would not attend our meetings or be able to experience what it is like to participate in a troop.
Our girls take pride in being Girl Scouts and strive to help their fellow troop members while assisting their leaders at every troop meeting. Our weekly troop meeting allows the girls to enjoy a positive learning environment where they can develop leadership skills without having to worry about babysitting their siblings at the same time. Sandy, a young girl at our Mineral Reno Housing Authority site, encompasses the persona of a young adult. It is clear that while Sandy is only in the fourth grade, she is wise beyond her years.
As a leader at this site, I have noticed that Sandy is accountable for her two younger sisters, Elizabeth who is in second grade, and Stephanie who is in kindergarten. One can see that Sandy’s sisters often look up to her for help with a problem or for reassurance. However, while Sandy is attending Girl Scouts, she directs her sisters to ask the leaders questions they may have about the current activity. At the meetings, Sandy still helps her sisters accomplish their activity, but we are able to relieve Sandy of some of her duties by helping her sisters so that Sandy may finish her own activity. Sandy is one of our quieter girls but she is slowly connecting with the other girls and taking on the role of being a child instead of an adult with her friends. Without financial aid from Girl Scouts of the Sierra Nevada, she would not have had the opportunity to take a break from her daily adult responsibilities and simply be a member of her troop with her sisters. Story by Outreach Troop Leader
The photographs illustrate some of the girls at the Essex Manor Reno Housing Authority as well as some of their artwork. The girls were asked to draw their perception of their troop and these were the results. The troop leader who wrote the attached story is one of our young staff members at the Mineral Manor Reno Housing Authority. We find that college-age women really do a wonderful job connecting and relating with these very young girls in Outreach who truly look up to them for guidance.