Ten Junior Girl Scouts from Troop 677 recently earned their bronze award — the highest award available to junior scouts. Alison Aimers, Nikita Barde, Priyanka Chodhari, Amy Laresch, Elsie Ling, Katie May, Priyanka Nischal, Shilvi Shah, and Kelsey Townsend earned the bronze award by leading a Brownie troop during the school year and Rachel Heyse did an independent project.
Last summer there were 13 second grade girls at Dutch Neck School who wanted to become Brownie Girl Scouts — and none of their parents would volunteer to be the primary troop leader, according to Louisa Ho, co-service director West Windsor Plainsboro Girl Scout unit. There was no room for them in existing troops and it looked like they would not be able to be Girl Scouts.
“I was feeling sad that so many girls wouldn’t be able to be scouts,” says Ho, who is also the leader of Troop 677. “I called seven of my junior scouts at home in August and asked them if they’d like to run a Brownie troop as their bronze award project. Every single girl that I called said yes. They didn’t want those other girls to miss out on being a Brownie.” Ho’s daughter, Rebecca Van Dyke, also a member of Troop 677 who already earned her bronze award last spring, likewise helped lead the Brownie troop.
All of the girls were fifth grade students at Village School or Millstone River School. For most of the Junior Scouts, going to Dutch Neck for Brownie meetings was a bit like going home since most had attended Dutch Neck when they were younger.
This was a family experience for the Laresh family. Amy’s younger sister, Julia, was in the Brownie troop and their father, Tom, was an assistant troop leader. Their mother, Dina, also helped out at meetings. Junior Scout Elsie Ling’s sister Ellen was also in the Brownie troop.
To earn the bronze award, the girls needed to earn two badges related to their project, earn the junior aide or junior leadership award, and conduct a 15-hour service project. Each girl on the “Brownie team” spent more than 15 hours preparing for or leading Brownie meetings. In total, the 10 girls spent more than 210 hours making the Brownie troop happen.
Said Archana Tilve, assistant troop leader: “They made it seem so easy.” Four Junior Scouts attended each meeting and each led a group of four or five Brownies in the day’s activities. The Juniors also prepared the activities, shopped for supplies, prepared materials, and rehearsed. They even sewed the Brownies’ costumes for Thinking Day, the annual international fair.
“I was impressed with how the girls worked maturely to plan activities for the Brownies,” says Dina Laresch. “They knew what to do with little help from me.”
“It was fun having the Juniors as our Brownie Leaders!,” says Reagan Ritterbush, one of the Brownies. “They always planned fun stuff for us to do and made us laugh. I’ll miss them next year.” Srilatha Chintalapati will lead the Brownie troop the coming school year with assistant leaders Archana Tilve, Lyne Simpson, and Tom Laresch.
“In some ways, the Junior Scouts were better at leading activities than the parents because the girls know all about Girl Scouts, they know how Brownie meetings run, and they had done many of the projects when they were Brownies,” says Ho.
Rachel Heyse’s independent project related to Thinking Day, celebrated every February with a large international fair for Girl Scout troops. For new leaders, preparing their troop for Thinking Day can be difficult and stressful. To make it easier for new leaders, Rachel prepared a computerized slide show about Thinking Day that will be given to new leaders. “It is terrific that we will be able to give new leaders a CD with directions and lots of pictures of Thinking Day,” says Natalie Devlin, the chairperson of the Thinking Day Committee. “It gives them a true picture of the days activities and will really help them plan for the event.”
If you are interested in joining Girl Scouts as a scout or as a leader, send an E-mail to girlscoutswwp@verizon.net or call Pat Held at 609-897-0529.
