Mound Girl Scout Troop 12415 planted a vegetable garden in May and donated produce throughout the summer to the Westonka Food Shelf. The final harvest of the season was Friday, October 9. In total, the girls donated more than 100 pounds of food over the course of the growing season using seeds, a few donated plants, and girl power!

Jack Wiest coordinated the produce deliveries to the Westonka food shelf, and free use of the garden plot was provided by Our Lady of the Lake Church.

See more photos on River Valleys’ Facebook page.

Jordan Girl Scout Junior Troop 21220 spent time planting flowers around Lagoon park in Jordan. This community service opportunity was just one of many planned activities to help the troop earn their Girl Scout Bronze Award. The girls have chosen the theme “Beautifying Our Community” and will also be organizing the Adopt-a-Highway fall clean-up and a holiday decorating project for local community businesses. They are also spending time within their own homes with recycling and yard projects.

The troop leaders and girls met this summer and we asked the girls what they wanted their troop year and Bronze Award project to be. They really enjoy non-traditional troop meetings that allow them to explore new ideas and concepts. The girls are also really busy with other extracurricular activities, so we also wanted this year to be more flexible to meet the demands of their schedules without overwhelming them. The conversation about this type of meeting generated a lot of ideas for a project and as we put them on paper, they all fell around the general theme of “beautifying our community.” We discussed what the word “community” meant. They said things like: buildings, schools, people, your city, or even a family. Those conversations evolved into a plan for this year.



We took their ideas and did some research: Linda Steinhoff, troop leader, contacted the City of Jordan and asked if there were any projects with which our troop could help; that turned into our Lagoon Park planting project. I contacted the manager at the Schule Haus and asked what we could do; that will be our valentines card making project to be delievered to the residents. The girls really wanted to do something else that could be seen around town; that will become our handmade holiday decorations that will be distributed around to community businesses.



Some of the  girls have also worked on building Teraya’s Garden, a community garden at Jordan Elementary School dedicated to the memory of a student who was killed in a car accident last year. The troop is sponsoring this year’s Jordan Service Unit Adopt-a-Highway Fall Clean-up, as well as recycling and helping with home projects and planting trees this Spring. The girls are looking forward to finding other ways to contribute to their community.

-Carrie Speikers, troop leader

Last month, Girl Scout Daisy through  Cadette troops in Faribault participated in the 25^th Annual Airfest and Balloon Rally, a community-wide event at the Faribault Airport.  Troops signed up for one-hour time slots to work at the Girl Scout booth.  The girls helped children and passersby make various styles of paper aircraft and parachutes.  Leaders were present to assist as needed.

There was also a Girl Scout information display set up where the general public could stop in and ask questions about Girl Scouting in Faribault (or River Valleys in general).  This was a wonderful opportunity for the girls to learn and practice leadership and public relations skills.

Faribault’s service unit also invited Miss Washington County, Mary Swenson, to partake in the festivities, and the girls loved her. She mingled with the Girl Scouts and the audience, worked with the girls in the activities booth, was a featured guest speaker, appeared on stage and shared her platform (self-esteem building through the uniquely ME! program), participated in numerous  photo opportunities, gave autographs, etc.

The Girl Scouts also packed up bags filled with goodies and coupons (including Girl Scout brochures/bookmarks) and passed them out to passersby.

The “Salad Bowl” has replaced the “melting pot” as an analogy for the USA. A melting pot requires ingredients to give up their individual flavor. A salad, on the other hand, needs each ingredient to retain its uniqueness and participate in the overall flavor. The Salad is meant to provide girl and adult Girl Scouts with resources and ideas to recognize, celebrate and participate in the River Valleys’ “salad.” Bertrene Cage welcomes comments and suggestions at 763-971-4046 or bertrene.cage@girlscourtsrv.org.

National Disability Employment Awareness Month

Diversity means differences. Human diversity means differences among people. It’s all of us in our rich and infinite variety. So in October we celebrate people who are differently-abled.

Congress designated each October as National Disability Employment Awareness Month. This effort to educate the American public about issues related to disability and employment actually began in 1945, when Congress enacted a law declaring the first week of October as “National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week.” In 1962, the word “physically” was removed to acknowledge the employment needs and contributions of individuals with all types of disabilities. In the 1970s, a historic shift in disability public policy occurred. For the first time, the exclusion of people with disabilities was viewed as discrimination. The efforts of disability activists led to significant changes in laws, such as the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and the designation of a full month to recognize the potential of America’s 30 million working-age people with disabilities.

October

Diversity Awareness Month

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

National Disability Employment Awareness Month

17 – Diwali (Buddhist, Hindu)

21 – Cirio de Nazare (Brazil)

25 – Mother-In-Law Day

31 – Reformation Day (Christian)

November

American Diabetes Month

National AIDS Awareness Month

National American Indian Heritage Month

1 – All Saints’ Day (Christian, Roman Catholic)

1 – Dia de los Muertos “Day of the Dead” (Mexico, Latin America)

2 – All Souls’ Day (Roman Catholic)

12 – Birthday of Baha’u'llah (Baha’i)

27 – Eid al-adha (Islamic, Muslim)

*Holy days usually begin at sundown the day before this date

Our first service projects of the year was a great success! Seven girls, as well as their families and leaders, joined other volunteers at Feed My Starving Children to pack nutritious meals for children around the world. The result was 7,992 meals (enough to feed 22 children for a year) packed in two hours. Afterward we were allowed to help say a prayer over the meals before they left. We also got to see how many Girl Scout Brownies could fit in a sack which holds a ton of rice. If you’ve been there, you will certainly remember, “chicken, veggies, soy, rice!” We would encourage every troop to try out this great service project. Our girls are already planning their next trip back!

Girls who attended: Ana, Analise, Anna, Ellie, Emma, Leah, and Paula.

- Troop 13433

On Sunday, August 30, Girl Scouts, along with Operation Christmas Child, hosted a garden tour with master gardener Jane Horn. Jane’s garden is in Prior Lake. It was absolutely beautiful. Jane gave her talk so that it included all the information for Girl Scout Brownies and Juniors to earn a badge and for Cadette and above to be well on their way to an interest patch. Admission to the event was a donation of school supplies to be used at the Girl Scouts box packing party in October or early November.

Kristine DCamp, leader of Troop 21594 had 4 girls from her troop.  Luanne Anderson leader of Troops 10519 – 2 girls; 10651 – 3 girls; and 11202 – 2 girls.

Jane, the master gardener, was a girl scout herself.  She wore her Girl Scout pins from when she was a girl. The girls that attended thought it was really great that she still had her pins and so proudly wore them.

Master gardener Jane Horn's Girl Scout pins

About us (Cora and Jess):

We connect caring for wild animals with Girl Scout badges.

We live on a hobby farm with horses, cows, sheep, goat, chickens, rabbits, cats, and dogs, so we’ve always had an idea of how to care for different animals.  One day a fawn came into our yard, and we called a friend who cared for wild animals and asked him a lot of questions. My mother got a special license to have the animals at our place. Jess and I took training and tests and
got an advanced license so we could help her care for the animals.

We have cared for a lot of different animals — to name a few: beavers, raccoons, fawns, squirrels, turtles, frogs, fox, bear cubs, birds, ducks, eagles. We have been doing this over 13 years and all the food and medical expenses come out of our own pocket. It has been a wonderful experience and a lot of time and hard work.

We have been in Girl Scouts for 12 years and stuck it out through four leaders and a lot of girls. We enjoy working as Youth Event Assistants to help out council members and just help out Girl Scouts.

This is our last year of Girl Scouts; we are bridging to adults this spring. We will miss being Girl Scouts.

-Cora

“Lots of hours of planning, workshops training the girls and their parents and the day finally arrived – August 9 in Champlin, Minnesota – and the Girl Scouts from 40 troops in the Champlin area gathered to create more than 1,100 holiday cards for [troops in Iraq and Afghanistan].”

Read the full article and see pictures at From Our Hearts’ website.

June 28, 2009. It’s 5 a.m. as our sleepy mother-daughter troop from Prior Lake and Savage – Jill and Jamie Stang, Margaret and Stacey LaFrance, and Monique and Lauren Rupp – heads off to the airport, anxiously awaiting our arrival in Atlanta, Georgia. As our plane touches down and we begin our road trip to Savannah, we first make a quick stop at the World of Coke museum in downtown Atlanta, where we experienced some good and some not-so-good Coke products from around the world.

We head off again and drive four hours until finally reaching our destination at the Mulberry Inn in Historic Savannah. What was once a cotton factory, and later became the first ever Coca-Cola bottling factory, had now become our hotel for our week in historic Savannah.

Our first day in Savannah was spent touring the historic city with the Old Savannah Trolley Tours. That same night, we were scared out of our wits while touring the Weed Sorrell Mansion, one of the top ten most haunted houses in the U.S. We awoke the second day to the history and flag semi-fore of Old Fort Jackson. There we were able to watch a real firing of a cannon, and we took a tour of the civil war barracks inside the fort’s walls. We spent the remainder of the day on a dolphin tour out on Tybee Island, where we learned about Atlantic bottle nose dolphins and their habitat. Wednesday morning we drove back out to Tybee Island to climb 178 steps to the top of the lighthouse on the Island. After climbing back down, we toured the house of the lighthouse keeper, where we found a picture of Dan Patch hanging on the wall above the mantel. We all thought this was amazing because our hometown of Savage is named after Dan Patch’s owner M.W. Savage, and Dan Patch and his owner were from Savage.

We also took part in a marine beach walk that afternoon, where we learned about the Georgia salt marshes, the marine life that lived there, and how to protect it. We ended that perfect day with a swim in the Atlantic Ocean and a fabulous lunch at a pink restaurant on the beach called Fannies.

Our last day in Savannah was spent at the Juliette Gordon Low house! We started our day by doing an interest session called Fabrics, Fashions, and Frills. During this session we were fortunate enough to learn everything from the proper way to wear a corset, to how to attach a bustle enhancer to get the true bustle look of the 1880s. Then we took a tour of Juliette Gordon Low’s birthplace. We ended our day with a true Victorian dinner, where we dressed up in dresses of Juliette’s day, and even ate off of replicas of the china she had painted!

It was amazing just seeing in that one day how one woman was able to make such a difference in the world with one idea. Juliette Gordon Low has done some awe-inspiring things for girls that people will remember forever.

The next day we woke up bright and early, to make a long road trip so we could arrive in Atlanta in time to catch our flight back home.

All in all, we learned bits and pieces of everything, all the way from how to wave a civil war flag to how to wear the best fashions of the 1880s, proper dinner manners for a dinner party, and about the founder of Girl Scouting in America. We had been saving up our Girl Scout cookie money for years to fund this trip, and after it was over, we can definitely say that it was worth every penny.