Ryan (Current Ambassador)

“The most important thing I think Girl Scouts teaches girls is that whoever you are, it is okay to be yourself.”


13 years ago, Ryan’s mother, a former Girl Scout, learned that the girls at her child’s elementary school were creating a Girl Scout troop. It was then that she decided that her child would become a scout. He missed the meeting that year, so it was only next year that Ryan became a Brownie. Now, all these years later, Ryan is still a scout, now in Arizona.

When he moved to Arizona, Ryan found notable differences between the council there and the one he had previously been under in New York. Here, there were more girls who wanted to be in troops then leaders who wanted to lead troops. Thus, there was a waiting list to get into Girl Scouts.

Ryan’s first troop leaders were the type of people who believed that the most important aspect of Scouting was the craft aspect. They taught him how to sew, to make bracelets, to iron, to hot-glue, to fold things (like sleeping bags) and to cook. Ryan learned how to use a Dutch-oven to create pies, pizzas and more. This was an especially useful skill when he went camping.

His troop didn’t as much go camping as a troop as they went camping as friends. They would stay up late talking, telling stories and making boondoggles. However, Ryan’s favorite memory with his troop was visiting the Discovery Center. The scouts simply ran around, playing together and having fun.

Every year, Ryan’s troop takes part in a program called Troop to Troop, but they don’t do it the same way as the council does. Instead of taking donations with which the council sends cookies overseas to soldiers, they found soldiers from their area and asked their families if they could send them cookies. If the family said yes, they would send a care package with a note, Girl Scout cookies, and a few extra items.

Ryan didn’t earn his Bronze or Silver Award, but he is currently working on his Gold Award. Ryan’s plan for his Gold Award is to create a website for helping people who suffer from mental illness and self-injury. He says that a website such as the one he is creating would have been very beneficial him. He wants to fill the website with words of comfort, help, videos, methods to help resist urges, etc. Ryan says that as now, more people are aware of self-harm, he is not as afraid of confronting the stigma associated with it.

From his experiences with Girl Scouts and the world, Ryan has kept the values of leaving a place cleaner then he found it and helping anyone who seems to be in distress close to his heart. He tries to do everything in his power to make the world a better place. Everyone he meets, he treats as his equal, regardless of if they are two or hundred years old, they are all his equals.


Ryan can be found at his tumblr.

Correction: The original draft had Ryan under a different name and pronouns. As of 2015, Ryan came out as a transgender man and I decided to change the pronouns and name in this post to reflect that.

Angie H. (Past Girl Scout and Troop Leader)

A group of girls dances garbed in vibrant clothing. Their hands and feet swirl in time to the Tarentella. The crowd at the church goes wild. The girls are around all around 13-15 years old, among them is Angie in a dress she handmade especially for the occasion.

Angie was a Girl Scout in the 1940s. It is 2013 now and Angie doesn’t remember much from her time at Girl Scouts  besides earning a few badges, going to some court of awards ceremonies and dancing the Tarentella with her troop. Angie’s memories are more intact however when it comes to around 10 years later when she was the troop leader for a collection of girls in upstate New York.

It all started when a mother at Angie’s church came up with an idea. She wanted to form a Brownie troop and wanted Angie to be her co-leader. Neither of them had had any prior experience of Girl Scouting (besides Angie’s few years as a Girl Scout) so they did it all "by the book". They told the 27 7-yearolds what was expected of them as Brownies, which were things like “You always have to have a ‘Brownie taste’ before you say you dislike something” and "You should follow the 'Brownie Way'."

When they first started, Angie’s troop didn’t have any uniforms yet, so they came in whatever clothes they wanted, which more often then not turned out to be a copy of whatever their leaders had worn the last meeting. It all started on the day when Angie went to the meeting wearing a little scarf; the next meeting all the little Brownies came in wearing scarves. This went on until they finally got their uniforms. They used to all attend mass on Sundays together in uniform so that everyone knew that they were the local Brownie troop and later, the Girl Scout troop.

When the troop used to travel to places like the park they would always have to scrunch together in cars, with about 9 people per car. The troop’s favorite car to ride in was Angie’s blue and white Ford Convertible. With 5 girls in the back seat and 3 girls in the front with Angie, Angie definitely thinks that the police of today would have been on her case for safety reasons.

Angie also remembers the first time she took the girls camping. They went out to a big one-room cabin in March. It was so cold that there was snow still frozen around the cabin area.

The good news for the girls was that their dinner was a hot dish called Brownie Stew. However, Angie remembers one little girl who did not take the Brownie Stew as welcome news.

Little Girl: Remember, I don’t like onions!

Angie: We’ll see about that. You probably won’t even know they are in there. They are not in there, they are not in there.

After the girl walked away Angie continued on with the recipe, added onions and fed the girls the stew.

Little Girl: I can taste the onions.

Angie: Do you like it? Do you think it tastes good?

Little Girl: It’s okay…

Angie: You see what you’ve done. You’ve tasted it. You’ve had your Brownie taste and you like it. So now, don't tell me you don’t like onions because you do like onions.

When it was time for the girls to go to bed after dinner, Angie had them unroll their pre-made bedrolls (not sleeping bags) and they changed into their pajamas in the cold air.

Angie and the other leader had made the girls change in the cold air to teach them the Brownie way, but Angie remembers that she, the other leader and the mothers decided to  cheat and just went to sleep in their clothes. Luckily they woke up earlier then the girls so that the girls were none the wiser. They were only staying one night so after the girls woke up, they packed and boarded the cars.

Angie and her family left New York for California 5 years later and that was the end of her time as a troop leader of 27 girls. She still thinks that saying yes to being a troop leader was one of the best choices she ever made.