Pointlife
Campus Girl Scouts create devoted relationships with local Brownies.
Campus Girl Scouts provide growing opportunities for youth in the Stevens Point area
The Pointer
jmath438@uwsp.edu
Opportunities for area Girl Scouts of the United States of America troops are being made available thanks to the efforts of the University of Wisconsin –Stevens Point Campus Girl Scouts.
Senior Stacie Simpson is the president of the UW-SP Campus Girl Scouts and a Gold Award recipient. The Gold Award is the Girl Scout’s equivalent to the Eagle Scout. Along with the Campus Girl Scouts, Simpson is a troop leader for a local troop of Girl Scouts.
The Campus Girl Scouts have organizations at universities and colleges all over the nation.
“We plan programs and activities for younger girls that are troops in the Stevens Point area so they have some extra programming opportunities,” said Simpson.
The campus group helps to bridge the gap between young and older troop leaders and scouts.
“Campus Girl Scouts gives a support system for college-age students,” said Simpson. “The majority of troop leaders are moms and sometimes it’s hard for me to bounce ideas off of them because there is a half-generation gap.”
The group also gives area troops unique opportunities and programs through UW-SP departments.
“For a lot of our programs there is so much good stuff happening on campus,” said Simpson.
The Campus Girl Scouts have brought troops to the climbing wall in the Health Enhancement Center, had a program with the UW-SP cheerleading team and visited the science department’s planetarium.
The events sponsored by the Campus Girl Scouts attract an average of 40 girls per event.
The extra involvement by the different Campus Girl Scouts is necessary to create activities so all the troops in the state can have program opportunities.
A recent realignment of the Girl Scout councils increased the size of the local council to cover much of Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan.
“The council used to be a smaller area and used to run programs that all the girls could come to,” said Simpson, “and now that it’s a huge area it’s impossible for them to do that. It was really a need in this community to have some programs for the girls to come to.”
