Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is the Slightly Messy Podcast, a extension of when
I was on the Mojo in the Morning Show, and
a kind of a look at our community here in
West Michigan, a look at you know. We have different
guests on constantly. I used to be the co host
of Mojo in the Morning. Now we're in the B
ninety three Morning Show, so we get all sorts of
(00:21):
guests here in the building. And I like to a
have have friends on. I like to have people that
work in the business. I like to have people that
do a lot in the community. And I thought today
as our second podcast of the year as we're going
on season three here. CEO of the West Michigan chapter
of the Girl Scouts, Vivian Turmott, how are you.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
I'm great, how are you good?
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Thank you so much for making the trip over.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm looking outside as we're standing here in the studio
and it's I don't know if the snow just started
or what's happening, but it picked up. So I appreciate
you making the trek over my pleasure. So, Girl Scouts,
you've been with the Girl Scouts for five years now correct?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
How often my daughter been in it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
But I've noticed that they don't change flavors every single
year for the cookies, right these are or is there
new cookies every year?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
No, you're right, good eyes. So new cookies come out
about every three years. Okay, we have a lineup of
nine cookies, you know them, you love them, and then
every three years they introduce something new. But then that
means they are also retiring a cookie, so keeps it fresh,
keeps it interesting.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
What did we retire this year?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Oh, a couple of something called a s'more. So that's
no longer around a small cookie, buzs. What we have
now is the explore more so it goes with the
energy and the culture of Girl Scouting, which is about
exploring the world around you. So it's a fantastic new cookie.
It's a sandwich cookie and it's Rocky Road ice cream inspired.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Oh my, that sounds delicious. All right?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So are we in the beginning of cookie season? Or
when does cookie season begin?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
It just launched last Friday, January ninth, Okay, and right now,
what you can do is order online at Findcookies Dot
or through your local Girl Scout who's taking orders. She
has an order card like you remember going door to door,
but she's also each girl has her own digital storefront,
so she can send you an independent link.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Oh nice.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
And then later in the season, which is it would
be Friday February twenty seventh, you will start seeing Girl
Scout troops out at local retailers, so the booths will
pop up. And then the season ends for US March thirtieth,
So it's January February March is our local cookie season.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
What's the do you You might not know this because
there's probably a number that isn't necessarily from here in
West Michigan, but maybe there is.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
I don't know. What's the most amount that's ever been sold?
Do you know that it?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Gosh, I don't.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
There's a great question, Like I would love because I
would love if my daughter goes when my daughter goes back,
I would love to be like, all right, here is
the most amount ever sold.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Do you think we your troop could beat that.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
That's a great question. You know it's different region to region, Okay, right,
so we might have a local top number and I
could get you that, but I don't know what it
is around the country. Yeah, but you know it's funny,
is I meet a lot of women and who were
girls who are a girl Scout alum, that's what we
call them. Fifty fifty million women in the world or
were Girl Scouts at one point, And so often they'll say,
I remember I really wanted that bike or whatever the
(03:14):
thing was, and they say, I worked so hard. But
it was the first time they remember setting a goal
and working for it and achieving it. That's an incredible
life skill. You need that in anything.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yes, one hundred percent, one hundred percent. And that was
the biggest thing in our house. I don't remember what
she got, if it was a bag or I don't
remember what it was, but she had her mindset on
this one thing, and I said, sast you gotta set
the gold, then you gotta you gotta put in the
work you gotta in. Her mom and her you know,
really did collab on that a lot, and it's great
and yeah, it turned out pretty well good. So explain
(03:47):
to those who may have might have little ones and
are thinking about getting them and their daughters into two
Girl Scouts.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I know my daughter did it for a few years.
She was a big fan.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
But somebody who's never done it before it is maybe
thinking about getting into it. Why get their little ones
into it?
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Girl Scouts is incredible. It is the largest youth development
program specifically designed for girls in the world. It's been
around for one hundred years and the mission hasn't changed.
The mission is building girls of courage, confidence and character
who make the world a better place. And that's what
we want. So when girls get involved in Girl Scouting,
what they do is they get together with the troop.
(04:24):
So you've got a troop of peers who are supportive
of you. You've got a troop leader, so you've got
an adult who's engaged, who is encouraging, and you try
new things in a safe place. So it's a little
bit about learning about the world around you, but learning
what your gifts are and then amplifying those. So we're
building empowered girls. That's what we do in Girl Scouts.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Love It. I have three little ones.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I have my oldest is eleven, it's my daughter, Cecily,
and then I have two boys, and so we were
finding a way to kind of get her connected and
kind of hang out with girls a little bit more too,
because she's got all boys. I mean, it's me, my
wife and then the two little boys, and so I
remember when she was younger, we started coming up with
ways to do this and reached out to you guys
(05:08):
and my wife was it ended up being is it
called a den mother.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
It's a trup leader, true leader. That's what it is.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
I'm thinking of something else, trup leader. She was a
troop leader for a little bit. And since then, so
my daughter did it for a number of years and
then she's kind of started dabbling in other things, but
talks about it all the time, talks about going back
all the time. And since then, has you mentioned entrepreneurship,
has decided she wants to run her own business at
some point. She wants to start her own bakery. And
(05:36):
I feel as though these skills and the connections that
she made there and the friendships and what she learned, truly,
I mean, this is what inspired her. She's from day
one in there when you guys were doing we'd go
to those cookies, you know, stops, and she was in
there and I'd never seen this out of her. She
was in there like almost like a manager, but like
(05:56):
very excited to work as a team and build and
and sell as many cookies as she could. And she
helped make videos to put out to family members and
was all super creative into what she wanted to do.
I had never seen that side of her before. So
what you guys do? I truly stand behind and believe
it because I think it's it's absolutely incredible. If somebody
wants to bring their little ones, I know there's a
(06:17):
bunch of different areas that you could meet with different
different troops.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
What's the best way to get connected?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
The best way to get connected is to visit GSM I,
sts dot org, gsmiss dot org and there's a troop
finder on there, so you plug in your zip code
and we direct you to establish troops in your school
or area, and if there isn't one, we'll work with
you on building one. Just takes two girls and two
adults to launch a troop. Oh okay, go from there
(06:46):
and have that experience. And Girl Scouting is a K
through twelve enterprise, so girls as young as kindergarteners and
all the way through twelfth grade participate in the Girl
Scout Leadership experience. And I love your or your viewpoint
and what you're sharing. Thank you for sharing them, because
what we're doing is giving girls a chance to through
(07:06):
the Cookie program, develop key life skills. They're learning communication.
When they're working at a cookie booth, they've got to
talk to strangers. That's pretty tough for kids who are
growing up without a landline, right, they don't have to
talk to people.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Isn't that wild?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
We were talking the other day speaking of landlines on
the air, about parents bringing back landlines because they want
their kids to stay off the screens. Is they have
the phones, but it blows my mind that they're coming
from an era where they don't even know what that is.
They don't even know what is one of the biggest
pieces of advice you give at Girl Scouts to help
(07:42):
build that communication skills.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
What we tell girls is you have to have the
courage to speak up. Have the courage. Your voice matters.
Speak up what you have to say, what you're thinking,
what you're feeling. Sure, be bold. And what the research
tells us is girls, especially around those middle school years,
they start to self censor. Oh really, so they're not
raising their hands, you know what they say, well, I
(08:08):
want to I don't want to say anything unless I
know it's one hundred percent right, which makes me laugh
because nothing is a hundred.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
We don't know failure.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
So you have to be able to speak up, use
your voice, right, and when you start in small things,
Courage is a muscle, right, You got to put in
the reps to build that muscle. So when we say
to our little ones in kindergarten first grade, we're like, hey,
you can talk to those folks. Look them in the eye,
step forward, tell them what you're doing and what your
goals are this season. So practicing that. So by the
(08:36):
time they are in twelfth grade, these are accomplished young
women who are going to go far. The research tells
us too that girls who participated in Girl Scouts, compared
to their non Girl Scout peers, outperform in ways that
are really compelling, Like they're more likely to be involved
in community service, community events, love that, more likely to
(08:57):
go on to higher education, and more likely to seek
out leadership roles. So you know, when you're in a
group and somebody says, all right, you know what, I'll
tackle that, I'll do that, I'll step up, so they
step up. And that's because we've been building that courage
muscle for years.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
I love the car.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
I'm gonna use courage muscle today today, I'm gonna bring
that home and I truly love what you guys do,
and she's in. My only reason my daughter's not in
Girl Scouts right this very moment is because she is
in the middle of tackling some other things she wants
to try out, and we didn't want to add all
these things at once. We're gonna but she's going back,
I get. I promise you she's going back. She asked
(09:32):
about it all the time. She loved the troop that
she was in, and she takes she does this on
her own now. She makes like these beads, or she'll
want to make lemonade, and she'll want to do stands
like they did with the cookies, because she loves that
side of it. And I'm interested to see where this
takes her because she right now she says she wants
to own her own bakery, and so she wants to
learn all these different skills. She asks great questions, and
(09:54):
I know it's got to be for being around people
who are doing the same and so I love it absolutely.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I'm a big fan of Big Supporter.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
And if you had cookies on you right now, I
would buy probably a bunch of them off of you.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Oh well, we've got a box a bag full of
cookies for you and your team, so we will Those
aren't in the room here, but we'll get those to you.
And for anybody interested in ordering cookies, the fastest way
to do that if you don't have a local Girl
Scout on your street in your neighborhood is Findcookies dot org. Okay,
you can go ahead and support some local troops right there.
You can pick whether you'd like to support a troop
(10:28):
from the Lake Shore, from Kent County or from the
northern region that we cover. Okay, you can go ahead
and order those and have them directship to your home.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
And the new flavor is explore Mores. Do we create
those here or those are those nationwide?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Like created?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah? Those are that's a national cookie. Okay, So every
Girl Scout council around the country carries the Explore more.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
There are actually two bakeries that bake for all one
hundred and eleven councils. Wow, so they're baking those cookies.
Those decisions are not made locally.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Hoping we could come up with a flavor here. That's
why I asked that question, what would.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
Your flavor be? If you could design a flavor?
Speaker 1 (11:05):
One jeez.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
You know what I'm a big fan of is the
oatmeal cream pies, the little Debbies. Yeah yeah, I don't
know how we create that into a flavor, but those,
to me are my fav I did like the smores
a lot too, but the chocolate and peanut butter are
always a huge hit.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Yeah, I'd love to see you. That would be something
kind of that'd be good. I think we might have
something there. I'll send him Momo Vivian.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Thank you so much, CEO of the Girl Scouts West Michigan.
Appreciate you so much for making the track over here.
It is truly appreciated. Thank you for the cookies and
everything you guys do. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Thank you,