By Sylvia Wolk, Joleen Ricci, Maddy Anderson-LaPorte, and Sigrid Flender
On March 2, 2014, the Bedford Hanscom Girl Scouts celebrated the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts(WAGGGS) Thinking Day. The theme of this year’s Thinking Day was “Education opens doors for all girls and boys” with a focus on the countries of Armenia, Egypt, Bangladesh, Benin, and St. Vincents and the Grenadines.
We first had a ceremony that enabled girls to earn the WAGGGS pin. The WAGGGS pin has many symbols, each with its own meaning. The blue background is the sky and the golden circle represents the sun. The trefoil represents the three parts of the promise. The star on the left is the Girl Scout promise and the star on the right is the Girl Scout law. The needle is the compass that directs Girl Scouts morals and values. Finally, the flame at the bottom is love and humanity.
Each of the Girl Scout troops worked on a different country, some doubled up. For the Armenia station there was a game, dioramas, and some Armenian language. The Egypt station had actual artifacts from Egypt and you could learn to write your name in Ancient Egyptian. The station on Bangladesh had two food items: a yogurt snack and a rusk cake snack. They also had girls ask questions about the country. There were dioramas of classrooms in St. Vincents and the Grenadines as well. A lot of the stations had poster boards with information about the countries.
Our speaker for Thinking Day was a Girl Scout who had worked with education for her Gold Award. As a Senior Girl Scout you have the choice to earn the gold award. Nora Walker was one of the people who decided to earn the award. To get the award, Girl Scouts have to work for 80 hours. But Nora’s project took her about 8 months. Nora’s project was donating art supplies to a school in Haiti. When she went to Haiti on a trip when she was younger, Nora saw workers passing buckets along to make a foundation for a new school. When Nora saw them she knew that she wanted to help them. She began by getting people to donate art supplies. Nora got crayons, colored pencils and more! After she collected all of the supplies she needed, Nora took a plane to Haiti. Haiti is a very poor country so they didn’t have many art supplies. She showed the Girl Scouts at Thinking Day a picture of a dirty bucket. In the bucket there were some broken crayons, one bottle of glue, and one or two broken colored pencils. “These are art supplies for a class of forty kids,” Nora told the Girl Scouts. But when she came every child got his or her own box of crayons. Nora taught them how to draw self portraits and how to trace their hands. “It was an amazing experience,” she said.
While attending the Girl Scouts Thinking Day celebration 2014, we were reminded that it is the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouts in Bedford, MA. So,with the help of a unique guest, Mrs. Margot Iwanchuk, the great, great, niece of Daisy Gordon Low, founder of Girl Scouts in America, we sounded out a loud Birthday cheer. Mrs.Iwanchuk, shared stories about Juliet Gordon Low. We learned about Juliet as a young adult and her trip to England, which, was a pretty big deal for women in those days. While in England Mrs. Low learned and shared in the Girl Scout experience. Through involvement and dedication to Scouts and her believe that all girls should have an opportunity for success she was able to bring Girl Scouts to America and spread her hope to girls. Mrs. Iwanchuk connected with many of the scouts by bring an antique wooden sled that was owned and used by Juliet Gordon Low as a young girl. The sled had been passed down in the family and we were lucky enough to see the sled that Juliet used to ride as a young girl. Mrs. Iwanchuk ended by telling us about how important Girl Scouting is to her family. I hope if you are a Girl Scout or not that when you look to Scouting you see it as an endless doorway to many girls and ideas.
This program was supported in part by a grant from the Bedford Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
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