Kalamazoo May 14

GIRL SCOUTS PLANT 95 TREES TO CELEBRATE 95 YEARS OF GIRL SCOUTING

The Girl Scouts of Glowing Embers Council will be planting 95 trees in celebration of 95 years of Girl Scouting and as part of the launch of  “Trees for the 21st CenturyTM” program, a collaboration  with The Future of Life, Inc. www.futureoflife.org

Saturday May 19th from 8A.M. to 12PM Girl Scouts will work with Master Gardeners to plant 95 trees at the NEW Girl Scout Program and Training Center at the corner of Crosstown Parkway and Maple St. These trees will add beauty to the site and replace the dieing and diseased trees that were removed from the construction site.

Celebrating 95 Years

Juliette Gordon Low founded Girl Scouting in 1912 in Savannah, Ga., with one troop of 18 girls, and since then more than 50 million girls have built leadership skills through Girl Scouting.  Research shows that Girl Scout alumnae now represent 70 percent of women serving in Congress, 64 percent of women listed in “Who’s Who in America” and 53 percent of women business owners. 

Illustrious alumnae include Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States; Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State; Eileen Collins, the first woman space shuttle commander; Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust, the first female president of Harvard University; and Katie Couric, the first woman to anchor a network evening newscast.

While many people associate Girl Scouting with the fun of camping, Low wanted girls to experience the beauty and the challenges of the outdoors so they might develop self-reliance and resourcefulness.  She encouraged girls to prepare not only for traditional homemaking, but also for future roles as professional women in the arts, sciences, and business, and for active citizenship.  One of America’s first female aviators, she introduced a Girl Scout aviation badge back in 1916 – four years before women won the right to vote.

Today, Girl Scouts of the USA has 3.6 million girl and adult members and is the preeminent organization for and leading authority on girls.  Girl Scouts travel the world, learn 21st-century business skills and prepare for a high-tech future.  The Girl Scout Leadership Development Program now reaches girls in every zip code, including locations in public housing, homeless shelters, juvenile detention centers, women's prisons, immigrant communities and isolated rural areas.