Girl Scouts is the largest organization serving girls in the world. Local Development Director Kelly Trame told us that more than one in three women in the United States were Girl Scouts at some point in their lives. "Nationally, the Girl Scouts has more than 1.5 million girl members, 700,000 adult volunteers and more than 50 million alums. The Girl Scouts of Western Ohio is the 6th largest Girl Scout Council in the country out of 110. It covers 32 counites and serves 30,000 girls." The Girl Scout program focuses on four pillars: STEM, outdoors, life skills and entrepreneurship. These pillars are designed to meet the girl where she is now and to grow along with her as she progresses through the program. Their more visible entrepreneurship program is the annual cookie sale which is going on now. If you don't know a Girl Scout, you can use the cookie finder on their website: https://www.gswo.org/en/cookies/find-cookies.html.
Also at Monday's meeting, we welcomed two new members, Tim Hammel, who is retired, and Nicole Daniels, who is Director of Marketing for Otterbein Cridersville.
We also presented scholarships to 18 non-traditional students. Since our scholarship program's inception, we have presented 1,163 scholarships totaling $908,150.
And Sarah Newland told us about Love Luggage, a program that collects backpacks filled with personal items for children who are removed from their homes by Allen County Children Services. Our club will be collecting items for Love Luggage and filling backpacks during our service day on May 1.
