Harvard Girl Scouts sell cookies on the Common circa 1940. (Courtesy photo)
It’s the “Year of the Girl,” according to the Girl Scouts; it is also their 100th anniversary. With their troop leaders, 129 Harvard Girl Scouts will celebrate 100 years by dancing through the ages on March 12, beginning with the tunes and steps from 1912, like the foxtrot and the waltz, and then eventually grooving to the beats of 2012.
The girls will also watch “The Golden Eaglet,” a silent black-and-white film produced in 1919, depicting the early days of the Girl Scouts.
The first American Girl Scout troop was organized by Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low in Savannah, Ga., on March 12, 1912. Low’s goal was to have “a girl-centered organization” that brought girls into the outdoors for activities such as camping and hiking and helping out the community.
Fifty-two years later, Harvard got its first Girl Scout troop, sponsored by the Harvard Woman’s Club. The original title designations have changed a bit and there are several more badges to be earned, but the fundamental goals of the organization remain: “Build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.”
“We do this by providing girls a fun, safe, and supportive environment for them to try new things, practice their leadership skills, and develop to their full individual potential,” said service unit manager Liz Hawkes, the top leader for Harvard’s scouts.
In the earlier days of scouting, girls could earn badges for good housekeeping and hosting. Today, the six divisions of Girl Scouts (Daisies, Brownies, Juniors, Cadets, Seniors, and Ambassadors) can earn a variety of badges, each selected for an appropriate age level. There are more than 130 badges divided between the divisions. Each also has a “make your own badge,” for which troops can create a badge and generate the activities and service requirements to earn the badge.
“[Earning badges] used to be all skill based and now almost every badge has a community service requirement,” said Harvard troop leader Janice Kennedy.
Kennedy’s eleventh-grade troop met the requirements for the “make your own badge” in style. For their Fashion Sense badge, the troop learned about fashion through the ages, shopped in consignment shops for clothes to redesign, and also collected used women’s business attire for Dress for Success, an organization that helps provide professional attire for women with low incomes to use in job interviews. The troop delivered the garments to the organization’s warehouse in Boston, met with the manager of the organization, and spent the rest of the day in the city around Faneuil Hall.
Cookies and service
In 1917, the birth of an American icon gave the Girl Scouts a means of supporting their events and activities. The first Girl Scout cookies were simple sugar cookies that were baked by the mothers and sold by the girls going door to door. During World War II, cookie sales were suspended due to a shortage of sugar, flour, and butter in the U.S. The girls instead sold calendars to fund their activities.
“We made do, came together as a community, as a family” said Harvard resident and former Girl Scout Elizabeth Marr.
According to Marr, the girls came together to support the American military as well by crushing old cans and sending them into the smelter to be used for airplane parts.
“Because of the war, we all came together for the same cause,” Marr said. “We raised our own veggies in our victory gardens and had ration stamps. We knew how to cope, how to deal with much less.”
Harvard’s current Scouts are working on a service project of their own. For the upcoming anniversary, the members of the 15 Harvard Girl Scout troops are participating in a “Birthday Box” project in conjunction with Loaves and Fishes, a Devens food pantry. The girls will be collecting birthday party supplies such as cake mix, decorations, and party favors and packaging them up so they can be sent to families in need with upcoming birthdays.
The Harvard troops also collaborate with Loaves and Fishes every December for the “Mitten Tree.” The girls donate mittens and hats to the organization for distribution to families who may need them.
