August 2, 2025 • 19 mins
Each and every year, the Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts serve thousands of girls throughout the Commonwealth, offering them opportunities to build leadership and life skills. This time of year, it's all about summer fun through camps, troop activities, and much more, but it's important to ensure every child who wants to take part has the chance to do so. Theresa Lynn, CEO of GSCWM, talks with Nichole about their efforts to ensure girls in underserved communities have access to these programs, their upcoming events, and a very special camp anniversary.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week right here, we come together and talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. Thanks for joining us again this weekend. I'm
Nicole Davis. Many years ago and at this point we
are talking many years ago. I remember being in Girl
Scout camp in the woods of New Hampshire, bunking in
(00:29):
with other Scouts from all over the state, spending a
week or two at times, and during that time I
learned a lot of valuable lessons and skills that I
still use to this day. Girls from all over the
country are having that very same experience right now. Other
Girl Scouts are enjoying day camp. Others still are spending
time with their troops, volunteering, doing stem activities, or working
(00:51):
on projects. The Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts
is supporting more than six thousand young people doing all
of those things in more. And it's no easy task,
but they say, of course, it's definitely worth it. CEO
Teresa Lynn is here to talk with us all about it. Teresa,
it is so good to have you. And you know,
when I talk with people about Girl Scouts, I've mentioned
(01:12):
this on the show before. Oftentimes I usually hear ooh
cookies or ooh, girl Scout camp. But you know, it
is so much more than just those things. Although those
things are a lot of fun, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
There definitely is, And especially when people haven't experience with
Girl Scouts, I like to try to remind them of
what Girl Scouts is in twenty twenty five as well.
It is cookies and camp, definitely, but it's much more
than that in terms of who we serve and how
we serve girls today.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Now, how are you working with girls in central and
western mass who might be coming from, say, underserved areas
of the state or underserved neighborhoods. What are you doing
in that regard?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So we're doing a lot there. The basic framework is
we bring Girl Scouting to where the girls are. So
instead of waiting for a girl to join a troop
and be placed in a troop, which is still a
great model, we want to make sure we serve all
the girls in central and western Massachusetts that want to
(02:17):
be Girl Scouts. So we take, using mostly staff and
sometimes volunteers, we take our program out of the office
and into the community, so we might be a housing
development running Girl Scouts a boys and girls club. We
are also at Girls' Inc. This summer, we're at Recreation Worcester,
which is a summer camp program. So it really means
(02:38):
taking our program out into the community.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And how are you working with the kids, you know
who come from those neighborhoods to not just instill confidence
and the skills that you learn in Girl Scouts, which
are very important skills, I'll have you know, but how
are you working with them to essentially build them up
and help them grow at a very important age.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So it's what all girls need. It's just that financial
barriers sometimes there are a problem. So what we do in
the case of our community based programs is essentially the same.
The first meeting is about learning about the girls, getting
comfortable with each other, and figuring out what our goals
are as a group. As you know from your own experienced,
(03:20):
Girl Scouts is a girl led organization. So it's not
that I developed the badges you earn or that I
say this has to be done. It comes from the girls.
They look at choices of different projects, badges, community service,
what they want to work on, and they choose it.
What we provide at Girl Scouts is the uniform, the badges,
(03:40):
the materials they need in order to do whatever project
they want to do, and just we try to eliminate
the financial barriers participation as well as the access. So
in other words, if a group wanted to do a
hiking badge, we would figure out a way to get
them on hikes to achieve that, even though you know
they don't have normal access us to these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Now, when it comes to the Girl Scouts and the
skills you learn, because I mean going out in the
woods and hiking and all that stuff, I mean that
is important to know. And I mean I learned how
to swim at Girl Scout camp. It changed my life
in many regards. I learned how to build a fire
at Girl Scouts. So those are important skills to have.
But here in twenty twenty five, you're talking about in
the twenty first century, how is the Girl Scouts. I
(04:23):
guess modifying the program to make sure that girls learn
the skills that modern kids need to know as well.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, so we do put a lot of focus on
stem and steam activities. And I know that's a big
buzzword right now, but you know what It's really really
important because when girls hit sort of early middle school
heading into high school, they self decide they're not interested
(04:52):
or they're not good at math, science, those kinds of
those kinds of interesting course work and skills you might
want to develop for later careers. So what Girl Scouts
does is we provide opportunities for hands on learning in
those fields, so science, technology, engineering, math, the arts, so
(05:14):
you get exposure, you don't self identify as not good
at it. You may decide I actually like this a lot,
because it's very hands on, it's very skill based, it's experiential,
and eventually, you know, our goal at Girl Scouts in
Central and Western mass is to really have to see
this as a workforce development platform, and I always say
(05:34):
an economic development platform. So in other words, we're trying
to get girls ready for their future or future academically
of course, but also their future in terms of jobs
and economic success. And what that means for worstern is
that their own population of future workers is right there
(05:54):
in the city. We don't have to, you know, attract
people from other places to come get all these good
jobs and ads and healthcare in academia. We can grow
them locally.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And I know you've got a lot of help with
local institutions like WPI for example. I mean they've been
working with you for a long time. When it comes
to STEM events, the WU Socks, the railers, I mean,
you've got a lot of people helping out to make
sure these kids get a big education around all sorts
of different subjects.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So that's really I'm so glad you brought up corporate
and community partnerships because that's really Girl Scouts in its course,
it's an inception. It's run by volunteers, it's really not
run by stamp. So these corporate partners are stepping up
and saying, I want to partner with you. I want
to be a volunteer. I want to help girls, you know,
(06:45):
learn new things, explore new opportunities. Some of them even
lead badges for troops. So it really is continuing on
the model of volunteer support and engagement from the community.
It just doesn't look like it did, you know, one
hundred years ago. It's just different. But Girl Scouts is
essentially volunteer led with a focus on civic and community engagement.
(07:10):
So all of our activities are centered on what does
your community need, what are the issues and problems. How
can we make life better big and small. Some girls
do projects that make their neighborhood better. Some girls do projects,
frankly that make the whole community better, and some that
are evergreen and can kind of be put anywhere in
(07:31):
the world. They do with environmental science, they have to
do with healthcare. But it can be local or it
can be national.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And I appreciate that because the priorities of communities change,
especially here in Massachusetts. Priorities in say Springfield or the
Berkshires are different from priorities on Cape Cod or in
the Merrimack Valley. So I appreciate that the volunteers help
it become a very hyper local program. In that way, it's.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Very hyper local, and the volunteers lend their unique skill sets.
So in other words, if say we have a staff
member or troop leader that are both serving the same purpose.
They're bringing Girl Scouts out to their troop or community
and they have an interesting camping. But guess what, this
crew of Girl Scouts they don't like bugs, they don't
(08:17):
like you know, sometimes swimming in a laker a pond
is very different than a pool. There's barriers to some people.
So what we do is try to find the right
volunteers who might want to engage with the girls on
whatever they're good at. And we have a group of
Girl Scouts, believe it or not, at a at WPI.
There's a troop there and they've been amazing on their own.
(08:40):
They formed the Girl Scout Troop as students of WPI,
and a huge part of their effort is going out
to Girl Scout gatherings in Central and Western mass and
bringing their engineering mindset, their math and stem mindset to
do activities. And you know they build prosthetics out of
recycled match curials for animals. Is to show girls how
(09:04):
you build these, how you can make life better. You know,
it's really an amazing thing when young people bring their
skill sets to teach other young girls.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
That is so cool. And then when it comes to
volunteering overall, I know that volunteers are a very important
part of your organization. Have you noticed though, that people
are volunteering more or less of their time these days,
because you know, people have to work more jobs to
get by, and I think a lot of people are
just kind of wiped out after the pandemic. Has that
(09:32):
impacted Girl Scouts at all.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yes, definitely. Now, the answer to your first part of
the question is people are volunteering more and enough, they're
just doing it very differently. So the kinds of volunteerings
that are short term, a couple hours, very intense, it's
on the rise. So that's why we want to engage
people with Girl Scouts to earn a badge, because that
(09:58):
might be twelve hours over two months. The long term
volunteer engagement of say a troop leader, where it's a
couple hours a week for fifty two weeks, that's on
the decline nationally, not just with Girl Scouts. I'm sure
you've heard this, but it's with Big Brother, Big Sister
and all sorts of organizations that have a really heavy
(10:19):
volunteer lift. And particularly in Massachusetts, in the households that
have two parents living in the household, eighty percent of
them both work outside the home. So where is the time?
Where is the time to do this? So we're trying
to evolve so that we can match those desires and
time limits on people's time. Because people don't lack the willingness,
(10:42):
they lack the time and the sort of the resources
to really connect with something individually. That's why food print
pantries do so well. It's very finite, right, you see
these six hours, you go and you do x amount.
It's very tangible, and we're trying to do that with
Girl Scouts. If you have time, we can find a
way to make your skill set match up with a
(11:02):
troop NEED or a community based program NEED well.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And you've also got some great events coming up, so
let's talk about one which I'm actually quite excited about.
It's called fork it Over. This is going to be
such a tasty event. And again people think Girl Scout event,
they think, oh cookies. This is savory, tasty, local food.
So tell us all about that.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, so fork it Over is an eating event. I
want to be clear about that. If you're interested in
food and eating, this is the place for you. It
is August fifth at the Ace Hotel and Worcester, and
the basic premise is that we bring in local chefs
from the Worcester General Wister area and they create a
savory and or sweet treat using a Girl Scout cookie
(11:43):
as an ingredient. So it could be any of them,
to be honest, it could be fin Min's, it could
be Samoas, and it doesn't have to be an overwhelming flavor.
So in other words, if you walked around, you wouldn't say, oh,
I know what's in this one? And you know, necessarily
you might some of them. It's quite obvious. But people
(12:04):
get to eat everything. There's a panel of judges that
will choose winners, but there's also people's choice awards, so
everyone who attends gets to vote on their favorite suite
and their favorite safe retreat.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Okay, and then you've got a very special birthday coming
up as well. This is for a beloved camp in Harvard,
and one hundred years is nothing to sneeze at, but
this is a big celebration coming up. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So one hundred years is a big milestone. Camp green
Eri isn't Harvard. It is a waterfront community. It has
a wonderful, wonderful footprint for hiking, for archery, hatchet throwing, sailing, kayaking,
arts and crafts. There is a science building because there's
a lot you can do in nature with science, and
(12:50):
we're trying to showcase this camp as the place for
one hundred years and beyond, because what Girl Scouts really
value in terms of time and nature is really really important.
Right now. A researcher over at Harvard who's very popular.
He's at the Kennedy School's name is Arthur Brooks, and
he has done research on unhappiness of American ages eighteen
(13:14):
to thirty, and they're very unhappy. If you look at
decades over time, they're getting more and more unhappy or
less happy. And one of the sort of solutions to that,
or reasons for that, is they don't spend enough time
in nature. And that's what Girl Scout camps can do.
You go to a Girl Scout camp for a week
(13:36):
or as a day camp. We have both overnight and day.
You are there immersing yourself in nature. There's a lack
of technology, so the phones are put away and there's
just learning. There's friendships, there's casual time. There's a lot
of time spent at the waterfront swimming like you experienced,
and there's a lot of camaraderie. So part of the
(13:57):
Girl Scout lawn promises be a friend to every girls Scout.
So we've heard a lot of stories recently about Girl
Scouts who went to camp this summer just a few
weeks ago. They didn't have any friends when they arrived
on the bus they thought. They told the counselor, I
don't I'm not good at making friends. I don't have
the same interest as other girls. And by the end
(14:18):
of the day they were all going on like a
bug hike where they tried to identify as many different
bugs as they could, and the girl was so excited
because that was her interest. So really finding a place
for every girl is part of the camp experience.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And there are so many cool themes here too. I'm
looking at the website for the camp and roller coaster Riders,
Courageous Cadets, Arrows, Hatchets and Axes. I mean if I
had had an arrow's, hatchets and Axes camp theme when
I went, I would have loved it. There's a little
bit of something for everybody here.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
There definitely is. There's a lot of high adventures. So
that's why, even though we want to honor the past
one hundred years, we want to look forward because a
lot of girls really like high adventure. They liked ropes, courses,
they like, you know, the roller coasters, they like the
archery is very very popular, and we just got a
big donation of new archery equipment, which is great. These
(15:11):
things are what girls are looking forward to There's a
lot of you know, you can hike out and sleep
overnight still on the camp property. There's island swims where
you swim from the you know, the main part of
the camp out to an island and back. It can
be high adventure as well as everything else.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
When it comes to camp. Obviously, we're getting to the
end of summer camp season for this year, so we're
looking ahead to the fall. And you were talking a
lot about STEM a couple of minutes ago and how
girl Scouts in Central and Western mass STEM is huge.
Right now, you have this event coming up in October
that I want to touch on quickly and I am
loving this theme. What's this all about?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
So this is a full day at WPI where we
partner with them to bring girl Scouts from across the
region in for a whole day of an expo on technology,
engineering and maths. So it's as if the girls are
going to a high level conference. They choose what sessions
they want to go to. The sessions are all led
(16:09):
by external partners, really really interesting stuff all around these
scenes to get girls interested in exploring these as future careers.
We have a panel of women in stem that talk
to the girls about their own career trajectories, which in
many cases are not linear. And I think that's great
(16:30):
for everyone to hear that the door is never shut.
It's a full day. The girls do at least six sessions.
There's an expo with lots of partners teaching them other
new things. They get to eat at the WPI cafeteria,
which is very very popular, and they get exposure to
a college campus, which I think in itself is a
(16:51):
really really good thing for all girls to experience at
a young age.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Most definitely, And you know you're working with six thousand
kids around in western Massachusetts, and you talked about volunteers,
You talked about support. If somebody is listening and they
want to best support you, how can they do that?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So the best thing to do is go to our
website GSCWM dot org. We have a four more information section,
or you could email us at it's just pretty simple
info IFO at GSCWM dot org. We look forward to
welcoming volunteers with particular skill sets or people trying to
figure out how they can lend an extra set of hands,
(17:31):
because sometimes that's what it is. That the girls are
pretty self motivated. They just need adults around to make
sure they're kind of putting up lanes in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah. Yeah, and sponsorship too, I'm sure for the events
coming up community sponsors. You talked about, corporate sponsors, corporate partners,
I'm assuming you need more of those as well.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Definitely, I mean our bigger events like the Fork it Over,
like Geek is Glam, a lot of our camp programs,
definitely a community based programs. We rely on corporate donations
and partnerships because Girl Scouts is very low cost for
a youth activity. It is extremely low cost, and we
(18:12):
want to keep it that way. We don't want we
also have financial aid, by the way, but we want
to make sure that all girls can participate and to
make that happen, we can't charge a lot to come
to our camp. We can't charge a lot for Geekisklam.
We want to make sure this is accessible. So community
partners are really really important and I can you know,
(18:33):
certainly give more information to anyone who would like that.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Okay, So again, the website GSCWM dot org and social media.
I'm assuming you're on Facebook, Instagram, all that.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
All that, Yes, please join us.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
All right, well, Teresa Linn from the Girl Scouts of
Central and Western Massachusetts. Looks like you've got another great
few months planned a head. Thanks so much for the
time and have a blast. Thank you, have a safe
and healthy weekend. Please join me again next week for
another edition of the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ
News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each week right here, we come together and talk about
all the topics important to you and the place where
you live. Thanks for joining us again this weekend. I'm
Nicole Davis. Many years ago and at this point we
are talking many years ago. I remember being in Girl
Scout camp in the woods of New Hampshire, bunking in
(00:29):
with other Scouts from all over the state, spending a
week or two at times, and during that time I
learned a lot of valuable lessons and skills that I
still use to this day. Girls from all over the
country are having that very same experience right now. Other
Girl Scouts are enjoying day camp. Others still are spending
time with their troops, volunteering, doing stem activities, or working
(00:51):
on projects. The Girl Scouts of Central and Western Massachusetts
is supporting more than six thousand young people doing all
of those things in more. And it's no easy task,
but they say, of course, it's definitely worth it. CEO
Teresa Lynn is here to talk with us all about it. Teresa,
it is so good to have you. And you know,
when I talk with people about Girl Scouts, I've mentioned
(01:12):
this on the show before. Oftentimes I usually hear ooh
cookies or ooh, girl Scout camp. But you know, it
is so much more than just those things. Although those
things are a lot of fun, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
There definitely is, And especially when people haven't experience with
Girl Scouts, I like to try to remind them of
what Girl Scouts is in twenty twenty five as well.
It is cookies and camp, definitely, but it's much more
than that in terms of who we serve and how
we serve girls today.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Now, how are you working with girls in central and
western mass who might be coming from, say, underserved areas
of the state or underserved neighborhoods. What are you doing
in that regard?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So we're doing a lot there. The basic framework is
we bring Girl Scouting to where the girls are. So
instead of waiting for a girl to join a troop
and be placed in a troop, which is still a
great model, we want to make sure we serve all
the girls in central and western Massachusetts that want to
(02:17):
be Girl Scouts. So we take, using mostly staff and
sometimes volunteers, we take our program out of the office
and into the community, so we might be a housing
development running Girl Scouts a boys and girls club. We
are also at Girls' Inc. This summer, we're at Recreation Worcester,
which is a summer camp program. So it really means
(02:38):
taking our program out into the community.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
And how are you working with the kids, you know
who come from those neighborhoods to not just instill confidence
and the skills that you learn in Girl Scouts, which
are very important skills, I'll have you know, but how
are you working with them to essentially build them up
and help them grow at a very important age.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
So it's what all girls need. It's just that financial
barriers sometimes there are a problem. So what we do in
the case of our community based programs is essentially the same.
The first meeting is about learning about the girls, getting
comfortable with each other, and figuring out what our goals
are as a group. As you know from your own experienced,
(03:20):
Girl Scouts is a girl led organization. So it's not
that I developed the badges you earn or that I
say this has to be done. It comes from the girls.
They look at choices of different projects, badges, community service,
what they want to work on, and they choose it.
What we provide at Girl Scouts is the uniform, the badges,
(03:40):
the materials they need in order to do whatever project
they want to do, and just we try to eliminate
the financial barriers participation as well as the access. So
in other words, if a group wanted to do a
hiking badge, we would figure out a way to get
them on hikes to achieve that, even though you know
they don't have normal access us to these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Now, when it comes to the Girl Scouts and the
skills you learn, because I mean going out in the
woods and hiking and all that stuff, I mean that
is important to know. And I mean I learned how
to swim at Girl Scout camp. It changed my life
in many regards. I learned how to build a fire
at Girl Scouts. So those are important skills to have.
But here in twenty twenty five, you're talking about in
the twenty first century, how is the Girl Scouts. I
(04:23):
guess modifying the program to make sure that girls learn
the skills that modern kids need to know as well.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah, so we do put a lot of focus on
stem and steam activities. And I know that's a big
buzzword right now, but you know what It's really really
important because when girls hit sort of early middle school
heading into high school, they self decide they're not interested
(04:52):
or they're not good at math, science, those kinds of
those kinds of interesting course work and skills you might
want to develop for later careers. So what Girl Scouts
does is we provide opportunities for hands on learning in
those fields, so science, technology, engineering, math, the arts, so
(05:14):
you get exposure, you don't self identify as not good
at it. You may decide I actually like this a lot,
because it's very hands on, it's very skill based, it's experiential,
and eventually, you know, our goal at Girl Scouts in
Central and Western mass is to really have to see
this as a workforce development platform, and I always say
(05:34):
an economic development platform. So in other words, we're trying
to get girls ready for their future or future academically
of course, but also their future in terms of jobs
and economic success. And what that means for worstern is
that their own population of future workers is right there
(05:54):
in the city. We don't have to, you know, attract
people from other places to come get all these good
jobs and ads and healthcare in academia. We can grow
them locally.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And I know you've got a lot of help with
local institutions like WPI for example. I mean they've been
working with you for a long time. When it comes
to STEM events, the WU Socks, the railers, I mean,
you've got a lot of people helping out to make
sure these kids get a big education around all sorts
of different subjects.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So that's really I'm so glad you brought up corporate
and community partnerships because that's really Girl Scouts in its course,
it's an inception. It's run by volunteers, it's really not
run by stamp. So these corporate partners are stepping up
and saying, I want to partner with you. I want
to be a volunteer. I want to help girls, you know,
(06:45):
learn new things, explore new opportunities. Some of them even
lead badges for troops. So it really is continuing on
the model of volunteer support and engagement from the community.
It just doesn't look like it did, you know, one
hundred years ago. It's just different. But Girl Scouts is
essentially volunteer led with a focus on civic and community engagement.
(07:10):
So all of our activities are centered on what does
your community need, what are the issues and problems. How
can we make life better big and small. Some girls
do projects that make their neighborhood better. Some girls do projects,
frankly that make the whole community better, and some that
are evergreen and can kind of be put anywhere in
(07:31):
the world. They do with environmental science, they have to
do with healthcare. But it can be local or it
can be national.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And I appreciate that because the priorities of communities change,
especially here in Massachusetts. Priorities in say Springfield or the
Berkshires are different from priorities on Cape Cod or in
the Merrimack Valley. So I appreciate that the volunteers help
it become a very hyper local program. In that way, it's.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Very hyper local, and the volunteers lend their unique skill sets.
So in other words, if say we have a staff
member or troop leader that are both serving the same purpose.
They're bringing Girl Scouts out to their troop or community
and they have an interesting camping. But guess what, this
crew of Girl Scouts they don't like bugs, they don't
(08:17):
like you know, sometimes swimming in a laker a pond
is very different than a pool. There's barriers to some people.
So what we do is try to find the right
volunteers who might want to engage with the girls on
whatever they're good at. And we have a group of
Girl Scouts, believe it or not, at a at WPI.
There's a troop there and they've been amazing on their own.
(08:40):
They formed the Girl Scout Troop as students of WPI,
and a huge part of their effort is going out
to Girl Scout gatherings in Central and Western mass and
bringing their engineering mindset, their math and stem mindset to
do activities. And you know they build prosthetics out of
recycled match curials for animals. Is to show girls how
(09:04):
you build these, how you can make life better. You know,
it's really an amazing thing when young people bring their
skill sets to teach other young girls.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
That is so cool. And then when it comes to
volunteering overall, I know that volunteers are a very important
part of your organization. Have you noticed though, that people
are volunteering more or less of their time these days,
because you know, people have to work more jobs to
get by, and I think a lot of people are
just kind of wiped out after the pandemic. Has that
(09:32):
impacted Girl Scouts at all.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yes, definitely. Now, the answer to your first part of
the question is people are volunteering more and enough, they're
just doing it very differently. So the kinds of volunteerings
that are short term, a couple hours, very intense, it's
on the rise. So that's why we want to engage
people with Girl Scouts to earn a badge, because that
(09:58):
might be twelve hours over two months. The long term
volunteer engagement of say a troop leader, where it's a
couple hours a week for fifty two weeks, that's on
the decline nationally, not just with Girl Scouts. I'm sure
you've heard this, but it's with Big Brother, Big Sister
and all sorts of organizations that have a really heavy
(10:19):
volunteer lift. And particularly in Massachusetts, in the households that
have two parents living in the household, eighty percent of
them both work outside the home. So where is the time?
Where is the time to do this? So we're trying
to evolve so that we can match those desires and
time limits on people's time. Because people don't lack the willingness,
(10:42):
they lack the time and the sort of the resources
to really connect with something individually. That's why food print
pantries do so well. It's very finite, right, you see
these six hours, you go and you do x amount.
It's very tangible, and we're trying to do that with
Girl Scouts. If you have time, we can find a
way to make your skill set match up with a
(11:02):
troop NEED or a community based program NEED well.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
And you've also got some great events coming up, so
let's talk about one which I'm actually quite excited about.
It's called fork it Over. This is going to be
such a tasty event. And again people think Girl Scout event,
they think, oh cookies. This is savory, tasty, local food.
So tell us all about that.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, so fork it Over is an eating event. I
want to be clear about that. If you're interested in
food and eating, this is the place for you. It
is August fifth at the Ace Hotel and Worcester, and
the basic premise is that we bring in local chefs
from the Worcester General Wister area and they create a
savory and or sweet treat using a Girl Scout cookie
(11:43):
as an ingredient. So it could be any of them,
to be honest, it could be fin Min's, it could
be Samoas, and it doesn't have to be an overwhelming flavor.
So in other words, if you walked around, you wouldn't say, oh,
I know what's in this one? And you know, necessarily
you might some of them. It's quite obvious. But people
(12:04):
get to eat everything. There's a panel of judges that
will choose winners, but there's also people's choice awards, so
everyone who attends gets to vote on their favorite suite
and their favorite safe retreat.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Okay, and then you've got a very special birthday coming
up as well. This is for a beloved camp in Harvard,
and one hundred years is nothing to sneeze at, but
this is a big celebration coming up. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So one hundred years is a big milestone. Camp green
Eri isn't Harvard. It is a waterfront community. It has
a wonderful, wonderful footprint for hiking, for archery, hatchet throwing, sailing, kayaking,
arts and crafts. There is a science building because there's
a lot you can do in nature with science, and
(12:50):
we're trying to showcase this camp as the place for
one hundred years and beyond, because what Girl Scouts really
value in terms of time and nature is really really important.
Right now. A researcher over at Harvard who's very popular.
He's at the Kennedy School's name is Arthur Brooks, and
he has done research on unhappiness of American ages eighteen
(13:14):
to thirty, and they're very unhappy. If you look at
decades over time, they're getting more and more unhappy or
less happy. And one of the sort of solutions to that,
or reasons for that, is they don't spend enough time
in nature. And that's what Girl Scout camps can do.
You go to a Girl Scout camp for a week
(13:36):
or as a day camp. We have both overnight and day.
You are there immersing yourself in nature. There's a lack
of technology, so the phones are put away and there's
just learning. There's friendships, there's casual time. There's a lot
of time spent at the waterfront swimming like you experienced,
and there's a lot of camaraderie. So part of the
(13:57):
Girl Scout lawn promises be a friend to every girls Scout.
So we've heard a lot of stories recently about Girl
Scouts who went to camp this summer just a few
weeks ago. They didn't have any friends when they arrived
on the bus they thought. They told the counselor, I
don't I'm not good at making friends. I don't have
the same interest as other girls. And by the end
(14:18):
of the day they were all going on like a
bug hike where they tried to identify as many different
bugs as they could, and the girl was so excited
because that was her interest. So really finding a place
for every girl is part of the camp experience.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
And there are so many cool themes here too. I'm
looking at the website for the camp and roller coaster Riders,
Courageous Cadets, Arrows, Hatchets and Axes. I mean if I
had had an arrow's, hatchets and Axes camp theme when
I went, I would have loved it. There's a little
bit of something for everybody here.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
There definitely is. There's a lot of high adventures. So
that's why, even though we want to honor the past
one hundred years, we want to look forward because a
lot of girls really like high adventure. They liked ropes, courses,
they like, you know, the roller coasters, they like the
archery is very very popular, and we just got a
big donation of new archery equipment, which is great. These
(15:11):
things are what girls are looking forward to There's a
lot of you know, you can hike out and sleep
overnight still on the camp property. There's island swims where
you swim from the you know, the main part of
the camp out to an island and back. It can
be high adventure as well as everything else.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
When it comes to camp. Obviously, we're getting to the
end of summer camp season for this year, so we're
looking ahead to the fall. And you were talking a
lot about STEM a couple of minutes ago and how
girl Scouts in Central and Western mass STEM is huge.
Right now, you have this event coming up in October
that I want to touch on quickly and I am
loving this theme. What's this all about?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
So this is a full day at WPI where we
partner with them to bring girl Scouts from across the
region in for a whole day of an expo on technology,
engineering and maths. So it's as if the girls are
going to a high level conference. They choose what sessions
they want to go to. The sessions are all led
(16:09):
by external partners, really really interesting stuff all around these
scenes to get girls interested in exploring these as future careers.
We have a panel of women in stem that talk
to the girls about their own career trajectories, which in
many cases are not linear. And I think that's great
(16:30):
for everyone to hear that the door is never shut.
It's a full day. The girls do at least six sessions.
There's an expo with lots of partners teaching them other
new things. They get to eat at the WPI cafeteria,
which is very very popular, and they get exposure to
a college campus, which I think in itself is a
(16:51):
really really good thing for all girls to experience at
a young age.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Most definitely, And you know you're working with six thousand
kids around in western Massachusetts, and you talked about volunteers,
You talked about support. If somebody is listening and they
want to best support you, how can they do that?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So the best thing to do is go to our
website GSCWM dot org. We have a four more information section,
or you could email us at it's just pretty simple
info IFO at GSCWM dot org. We look forward to
welcoming volunteers with particular skill sets or people trying to
figure out how they can lend an extra set of hands,
(17:31):
because sometimes that's what it is. That the girls are
pretty self motivated. They just need adults around to make
sure they're kind of putting up lanes in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah. Yeah, and sponsorship too, I'm sure for the events
coming up community sponsors. You talked about, corporate sponsors, corporate partners,
I'm assuming you need more of those as well.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Definitely, I mean our bigger events like the Fork it Over,
like Geek is Glam, a lot of our camp programs,
definitely a community based programs. We rely on corporate donations
and partnerships because Girl Scouts is very low cost for
a youth activity. It is extremely low cost, and we
(18:12):
want to keep it that way. We don't want we
also have financial aid, by the way, but we want
to make sure that all girls can participate and to
make that happen, we can't charge a lot to come
to our camp. We can't charge a lot for Geekisklam.
We want to make sure this is accessible. So community
partners are really really important and I can you know,
(18:33):
certainly give more information to anyone who would like that.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Okay, So again, the website GSCWM dot org and social media.
I'm assuming you're on Facebook, Instagram, all that.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
All that, Yes, please join us.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
All right, well, Teresa Linn from the Girl Scouts of
Central and Western Massachusetts. Looks like you've got another great
few months planned a head. Thanks so much for the
time and have a blast. Thank you, have a safe
and healthy weekend. Please join me again next week for
another edition of the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ
News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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