Girl Scouts Centennial Celebration

The Girl Scouts are now 100 years old but I got the gift. Over the weekend, I attended the Girl Scouts Centennial Celebration in White Plains, New York, with the 2500 scouts who pre-registered for this major event. The purpose was to celebrate scouting with expo-like booths and to recognize the 178 teen Girl Scouts who were receiving scouting's highest honor, the Gold Award. Since Girl Scouts are encouraged to build character and take action to "make the world a better place," Leaders had previously been asked to provide descriptions of some of our best "Take Action" projects. My troop submitted an application which explained the "Be Smart, Don't Start" anti-smoking program I had done this past November for Girl Scout Troops throughout our area. More details can be found in the October posting entitled, "Great American Smokeout"  Our project was selected to be included in the expo from submissions from all over the seven counties that comprise the Heart of the Hudson Council. Our goal was to discourage young girls from starting to smoke, while also providing them with information to help them encourage loved ones to try to stop smoking.

Our display included a laptop presentation of the very powerful "Splode"video from the TheTruth.com website, as well as a load of craft supplies so that all of our visitors could design posters, banners and signs with anti-smoking messages, and inspiring cards for various smoker family members. Some of the stories those little girls told me were really hearbreaking - like grandparents who died of cancer, or were sick now. I asked each girl to place her hand over her heart and make a promise to herself that she would never start smoking, and would always remember how smart she was now, and not let anyone talk her into bad choices. 

I was amazed and pleased about how receptive the girls and their parents and Leaders were to our table. The most memorable moment came when a troop returned to our table for a second visit. They had brought along a slightly older woman who I took to be the Troop Grandmother, probably the Leader's mom. I heard them telling her how she just "had to hear the info at this booth." Our eyes met & we both knew she was a smoker who had just been ambushed. As gently & tactfully as possible, I talked with her about what we had been doing at the table all day. Then I told her about my late father, Harry Schulman, who had gotten sick of his two pack a day habit and made up his mind, "I'm not going to smoke today. I don't know about tomorrow, but I'm not going to smoke today." Being a salesperson at heart, I had to go for the 'close' and asked her if she might try this tomorrow. She said, "No, TODAY!" Wherever she is, I send her blessings and thanks for that special gift.