Finding Our Way Back to Girl Scouts

Thank you to Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland for sponsoring this post. As always, all opinions remain my own.

I started researching it before my oldest daughter was even in elementary school.  Girl Scouts had been a really positive part of my own childhood, and it was one of those things I always knew I wanted my girls to experience too. I loved what I remembered about it, but I also really believed in what it gave girls. The friendships, the independence, trying new things, getting involved in their community, learning important lifelong skills.

I was very into the idea.

So when my daughter finally got to kindergarten, I was READY.

And then, of course, because life never works exactly the way you picture it in your head, getting a troop together that first year was a little harder than I expected. We weren’t able to make it happen in kindergarten, but by first grade, we had our troop.

And honestly, that troop ended up being one of my favorite parts of her elementary school years.

The girls stayed together all the way through elementary school, which meant I got to watch this little group of first graders grow up together. And because I was one of their troop leaders, I really got to be part of it.

We did so many things.

We had a sleepover at COSI. We went to Build-A-Bear and made Brownie bears, which I still think was so adorable and fun for the girls and the moms too. We did service projects for their school. There were badges and meetings and activities and, obviously, cookie season.

And I think that’s probably part of why Girl Scouts has always had such a soft spot in my heart. It became this thing that my daughter and I did together for years.

I was there for the meetings and the cookie sales and the field trips and all of these little experiences that maybe didn’t feel monumental while we were doing them, but now that she’s a freshman in high school, they feel pretty special.

Which is also why it was kind of (really) sad when it ended.

Once the girls got older, schedules changed, everyone started going in different directions, and keeping a traditional troop together became harder. Eventually our troop ended.

But she never completely let go of Girl Scouts.

Every so often she would ask me if there was a way she could go back.

I had always thought about Girl Scouts through the lens of having a traditional troop because that was the way we had experienced it. So without a troop, I wasn’t really sure what the option was.

And then I learned about Girl Scouts My Way.

Girl Scouts My Way gives girls and families more flexibility in what their Girl Scout experience looks like. You can still participate in programs, activities, badges and experiences without everything having to revolve around the traditional troop structure.

And immediately my brain went to my girls.

Because while my oldest had this entire Girl Scout chapter growing up, her younger sister hadn’t really gotten that same experience. The timing and circumstances were different when she reached Girl Scout age, and it never quite came together.

So suddenly we had this opportunity to come back to something that had meant a lot to us, but do it completely differently this time. I really, really love that.

We decided that as summer wrapped up and we started getting back into the rhythm of the school year, we would start planning our Girl Scout adventures together.

We recently got the Girl Scout program guide, and the three of us have already been flipping through it figuring out what we want to do.

We’re basically looking through it going, “Oh, we should do that. Wait, that too. Ohhhh, look at this one.” Which feels very on brand for us.

We did manage to get a pretty memorable head start this summer with the Girl Scouts Mad Mud Challenge.

And yes, it was exactly what it sounds like.

Mud. Obstacles. More mud. 

We had the best time. You can see more of our experience here.

But I think the thing I’m most excited about with this new Girl Scouts chapter isn’t actually one particular event.

It’s the three of us.

E and I had this experience together for years when she was little, and now we get to bring her sister into something that already has all of these memories attached to it for us.

And everyone is older now.

Life gets really busy in a different way once your kids aren’t tiny anymore. Everyone has somewhere to be. Someone has practice. Someone has plans with friends. Someone needs a ride somewhere. I have work. There are a million calendars happening at all times.

So having something that gives the three of us an excuse to say, “Okay, this is our thing today,” feels really meaningful to me.

I think that’s probably what I’m most excited to share with you, because I had no idea Girl Scouts My Way was even an option until recently. For years, when E would ask about going back to Girl Scouts, I assumed that without a traditional troop, we had kind of missed our opportunity. Finding out that there was another way for us to come back to it, and now to bring her younger sister into it too, has been such a fun surprise. I’m really thankful to Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland for giving our family the opportunity to experience it this way.

We already have quite a few things circled in the program guide, so over the next couple of months, I’ll be sharing what we get into as we go. Some of it will end up here, and I’m sure plenty of it will end up over on social because, based on the Mud Challenge alone, I have a feeling some of these adventures are going to be much better documented in real time.

For now, though, we’re really excited to be Girl Scouts again.

And I have a feeling this is going to be fun.