The bronze award, the highest award for a Junior Girl Scout to receive, was recently awarded to 13 girls in the West Windsor Plainsboro Service Unit.
Rebecca Van Dyke and Lauren Kullmann have earned the bronze award with their community service to help Brownie Girl Scout troops earn the Manners Try-It, a badge focusing on etiquette. They are in Troop 677.##M:[more]##
Rebecca, 10, is a fifth grader at Village School. She entered Girl Scouting as a Daisy Scout in kindergarten. Her father, Carl Van Dyke, is director of the MultiModal Systems Division of Mercer Management Consulting. Her mother, Louisa Ho, is a part-time consultant for Transystems, and is the leader of troops 677 and 1866, as well as co-service unit director for the West Windsor-Plainsboro Girl Scout Service Unit. Rebecca has a younger brother David. Rebecca enjoys reading and dancing (tap and jazz).
Lauren, 12, a sixth grader at Grover Middle School, also began as a Daisy Scout. Her sister Kimberly, who is in fifth grade, is also a member of Troop 677. Her other siblings are Katie and Kevin. Her mother is Valerie Kullman, a pediatrician at Princeton Nassau Pediatrics. Her father, Randy Kullmann, is an environmental scientist at Camp Dresser and Mckee. Lauren skis and plays tennis.
Last year, Rebecca and Lauren earned the Girl Scouting in the USA Badge, the Sign of the Star, the Junior Aide Award, and Junior Leadership Award, and earned the Let’s Get Cooking Badge during the summer. Since then the girls have been focusing on their 15-hour community service project, the last bronze award requirement. The two girls planned and designed a program to visit Brownie troops and teach the Brownie Scouts about formal greetings, telephone manners, eating customs in other countries, and restaurant manners.
The main part of the program is Sid’s Snack Shop. Sid, a stuffed seahorse, and Baby Sid, a smaller stuffed seahorse, have a seahorse-themed snack shop. All the Brownie Scouts get a chance to be a waiter at the snack shop, writing down their orders on a seahorse decorated order pad. They also get to be customers and order from a four-course menu.
“The Brownie Scouts definitely enjoy both being waiters, and eating all the food as customers,” says Ho, one of their leaders. “With the two Junior Scouts in charge and the Brownie Scouts taking turns as waiters, the adult troop leaders are relegated to working the kitchen at Sid’s Snack Shop.”
As a way to experience eating customs in other countries, the Brownie Scouts try to eat their appetizer course with chopsticks and most of the girls have been able to pick up popcorn or cheese balls with chopsticks. “Some enjoyed eating with chopsticks so much that they were using their chopsticks to eat chocolate chip cookies from the dessert menu,” says Ho. “What a sight!”
“While this has been a fun activity for the Brownie Scouts, it was a great help to the leaders,” says Ellen Clancey, leader of Brownie Troop 1016. “These girls planned it, organized it, and ran the meeting with little input from the leader. They did the whole thing. My Brownie Scouts looked up to the older Girl Scouts and thought of them as leaders-in-training.”
“What impressed me most was Rebecca’s and Lauren’s ability to lead a group of 12 girls through the various activities while keeping them enthused, interested and focused,” said Alpa Montoya, leader of Troop 1614. “It was also wonderful for my Brownie scouts to see one of the different leadership opportunities that lie ahead for them as they progress through Girl Scouting.”
“That’s one of the really special features of Girl Scouts,” says Ho. “There are few other environments in which girls of their age would be able to develop such leadership skills. Many adults get nervous about leading Girl Scout troop meetings. It’s amazing to realize that 10 and 11-year old girls can do it, and do it well.”
