Girl Scout Program Unique to Girls

The Feb. 3 article, “Scouting: A Duty to God, Country and Minorities,” was a disappointment to our Girl Scout Council for two important reasons. First, it combined two totally separate entities, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, into the heading “Scouting” as if we were one and the same organization.

This is an image problem Girl Scouts have long tried to overcome. Girl Scouting is an educational program for the development of girls and the program we provide is unique to girls. Girl Scouts is a totally separate entity, with a local volunteer board of directors with responsibility for setting policy, determining programming for the organization and fund raising to make these programs possible.

Second, with all the many weeks of interviews and in-depth information we provided about our extensive countywide outreach program, we anticipated a much more comprehensive story.

With 30 outreach centers throughout the country and myriad stories resulting from their program activities, we were greatly disappointed that the story included one brief, very generalized mention about a troop in Santa Ana, a couple of generalized quotes by Girl Scout volunteers and the rest of the story dealt with Boy Scout activity and combined information that didn’t clearly or accurately convey our Girl Scout efforts in this important area.

A very important point that was not accurately addressed in the story is that our minority-outreach program is not some recent innovation on our part. In 1973, our Girl Scout Council recognized that we needed to begin reaching out to girls from minority communities. As a result, for the past 19 years our council has had in place and fully funded, an ever-expanding, viable minority outreach program, and none of our outreach troops have ever been disbanded for lack of funds.

JACQUELINE SCHAAR, First Vice President, Girl Scout Council of Orange County