Photograph by Kate Carter
Troop Effort: Brownie Troop 124 (from left), Amanda Fasano, 9, troop leader Theresa Wright, Bianca Smith, 9, Mary Gatesy, 8, Sara Rozul, 9, Katie Woldt, 8, and Anne Gatesy, 6, work on putting up a poster at the Willow Glen Library, commemorating Lou Henry Hoover, the founder of the Girl Scouts.
Willow Glen Girl Scouts celebrate women's history, 90 years in U.S.
Troop 124 displays poster about early leader at WG Library
By Kate Carter
For Girl Scouts in the know, it's about more than cookies. . A troop of Willow Glen Girl Scouts is letting the community in on the secret too. Members of Brownie Troop 124 are sharing the story of a woman important to them and demonstrating her importance to history during Women's History Month and in celebration of the Girl Scouts' 90 years in the United States.
The troop, which consists of 21 girls from St. Christopher's School's third grade, created a poster honoring Lou Henry Hoover, the woman who brought Girl Scouts to the West, and hung it in the Willow Glen Branch Library Feb. 28. The poster will be on display throughout March.
"I had never heard of her," troop leader Theresa Wright says to explain why the troop chose to feature Hoover. "Nobody's ever heard of her, and she did so much for Girl Scouts locally. She sort of walked what we talk, of girls in particular, of having the opportunity to be all that they can be."
Hoover, the wife of President Herbert Hoover, grew up in California, went to San Jose State University (then known as the San Jose Normal School) and then studied geology at Stanford University, where she met her husband. She met Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts of America, at the end of World War II. When her husband moved the family to Washington D.C., Hoover started her own troop of scouts, which included both white and African American girls--a rare occurence at that time.
After her husband's presidency concluded, Hoover's family moved back to California, and she brought the Girl Scouts with her, building the Girl Scout House in Palo Alto in 1926, which still stands there today. Wright's troop visited the house in preparation for creating its poster.
"It's old and dark," she says of the house.
But Girl Scouts isn't. The past 90 years of Girl Scouting have seen many changes in the organization's focus, but its mission has remained the same: to give girls an opportunity to develop leadership skills, social consciences, strength and values that will see them into womanhood.
"Girl Scouts is a really informal way of learning about the broader community and our place in it," says Wright, who herself was a Girl Scout for five years. "There are just some things you can't teach one-on-one--a sense of belonging and responsibility to the broader community. It's not formally taught, and I think it needs to be focused on."
Low organized the first U.S. Girl Scouts troop of 18 girls on March 12, 1912, to give girls an opportunity to do something for the community and see the world outside their own homes. She modeled the program on the British Girl Guides organization, but as time went on, the U.S. program gained its own identity and was officially chartered on March 16, 1950. The organization today consists of 2.8 million girls and 942,000 adults in 233,000 troops in the United States and 81 other countries and is a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, which incorporates 140 countries and 10 million girls and adults. More than 50 million women have participated in the Girl Scouts.
Debbie Espinosa-Fabriquer, spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County, says there are about 16,000 Girl Scouts in the county and 6,500 adult volunteers, and 412 girls and 241 adults in Willow Glen. And she says that the organization has changed over time to continue fulfilling Low's original goals of giving all girls, everywhere, the opportunities to grow to their full potential.
"[Girl Scouts] are doing such a wide variety of activities, that almost any girl can find her interest in Girl Scouts," she says.
The first Girl Scouts hiked, played basketball and went camping. During World War I and II and the Great Depression, they volunteered in hospitals, grew vegetables and collected toys, food and clothes. The organization developed leadership training courses and its own national training center.
During the civil rights movement, the Girl Scouts National Board supported civil rights and held conferences and an Action 70 project as initiatives to overcome prejudice. The organization began a national environmentalism program in the 1970s, and in the 1980s introduced publications addressing child abuse, youth suicide, literacy and pluralism.
It renewed its focus on physical fitness during the 1990s, beginning a national health and fitness service project in 1994 and the GirlSports initiative in 1996.
Photograph by Kate Carter
Brownies at Work: Brownie Troop 124 (from left), Amanda Fasano, 9, Bianca Smith, 9, Mary Gatesy, 8, Sara Rozul, 9, and Katie Woldt, 8, all third-graders from St. Christopher's School, work on putting up a poster at the Willow Glen Library, commemorating Lou Henry Hoover, the founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA.
These days, Espinosa-Fabriquer says, Girl Scout troops are run by working moms and teams of parents as well as stay-at-home moms, and are often geared to teaching the scouts skills the adults have.
"Now it's about mentoring, as well," she says.
In addition, the countywide organization offers additional after-school, gang-prevention, shelter and group home programs and approaches its older members in junior high and high school about what they want from the organization, so it can continue to be that for them, Espinosa-Fabriquer says.
"It's not just troops anymore," she says. "We've been doing a lot of this for years. Girl Scouts nowadays is very aware that we need to be meeting the needs of the girls, and so we do more outreach."
And like the Boy Scouts of America's prestigious Eagle Scout Award, the Girl Scouts offers its stellar members an equivalent, though less well-known, Gold Award, Espinosa-Fabriquer says. Those who earn the award, like the 18 in the county who earned it last year, must "plan an activity that incorporates their leadership skills to do some project that benefits the community," she says.
"We're trying to get the word out about it," she adds.
The organization is open to girls ages 5 through 17 and troops are divided based on age--Daisy Girl Scouts are 5 to 6 years old, Brownie Girl Scouts are 6 to 8 years old, Junior Girl Scouts are 8 to 11 years old, Cadette Girl Scouts are 11 to 14 years old and Senior Girl Scouts are 14 to 17 years old. Although every troop is different, most of their activities include field trips, sports, community services, cultural exchanges and environmental stewardship.
This year, Troop 124 participated in a Sweetheart Ball for fathers and daughters and an international awareness day, held a clothing drive, threw a Christmas party for children in affordable housing, decorated a Christmas in the Park tree, adopted a creek, had an overnight, a cookout and a nature hike, and participated in many other activities.
"Every three months we try to do one service project, have one field trip and have three meetings," says Wright, who leads the group with the help of two other mothers.
And, of course, they sell cookies. Fifty cents of every box the scouts sell is kept by the troop to fund its various activities. Last year, the girls chose to spend some of their cookie money on stuffed animals they made at the Build a Bear Workshop. In addition, the girls can earn incentive prizes and raise money toward funding a summer camp experience.
"That takes a lot of cookies, but every little bit helps," Wright says.
The troop's cookie drive this year ends March 30. To buy cookies, call Wright before then at 408.287.0592.
But while most people think of cookies when they think of Girl Scouts, Troop 124 hopes its display will remind people of what the Girl Scouts are really all about.
"I think it's important that we remember women like [Hoover] who were brave enough to do things individually," like desegregating scouting troops, Wright says. "It was a scandal then."
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
