Local Girl Scout Councils To Reorganize, Refocus

By Scott Smith in News on Sep 21, 2006 1:02PM

In an effort to provide funding for new programs designed to better serve its youth, the Girl Scouts of the USA will be reorganizing several regional councils, including some in the Chicago area.

According to the Tribune, the Girl Scouts spent the last two years conducting an internal audit to determine what issues were most important to the young women in their organization. Topics like cyber-bullying, teen pregnancy, and cutting (self-injury) were foremost in their minds. Concerns about wearing mint-colored vests that clash with everything ranked a distant fourth.

In the next two years, the 312 regional councils of Girl Scouts will combine into 109 groups. The seven councils throughout Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana will come together to form one large group. Sort of like Voltron.

Recently, Girl Scouts has seen its membership numbers decrease, and this study was done in an effort to avoid a “crisis of relevance.” This reorganization follows a recent study released by the Girl Scout Institute titled “The New Normal? What Girls Say About Healthy Living” that explored the physical and mental health of 2000 girls aged eight to 17.

We’re all for giving young women more information and not less (abstinence-only based sex ed programs, we’re looking at you). But if you Girl Scouts stop selling Thin Mints then God help you.

Incidentally, did you know the Girl Scout Founder, Juliette Gordon Low had near-total hearing loss due in part to infections and a piece of rice that got lodged in her eardrum when it was thrown at her wedding? They always mention the part about how it kills birds, but no one ever mentions you could blow out someone's eardrum by throwing rice.