100th Anniversary - Guest Blog: Carroll

This week we are honored to feature Norah Carroll, a digital strategist at Lava Row, as our guest blogger. We want to thank Norah for her unique perspective on the lessons she took away from the Girl Scout experience.   Enjoy!

If you are interested in becoming our next guest blogger, email us and tell us your story!

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Norah Carroll
Digital Strategist
Lava Row

When I was growing up, I participated in just about every activity I could find. I took ice skating lessons, piano lessons, swimming lessons, and Irish dance lessons. I was in the art club, the chess club, student council, and the school band. It might have had something to do with my mom being a teacher – “learning opportunities!” – but I was eager to seize every opportunity that came my way, and when I learned that a few of my 4th grade classmates were in a Girl Scout troop, I knew I had to join.
 


I don’t remember much from the two years I was in Girl Scouts, though the Girl Scout Promise has managed to stick with me (does anyone ever really forget that?) To be honest, my time in Girl Scouts wasn’t particularly life changing. I was in a troop with girls I never got to know very well, and though I was ambitious about earning badges, Girl Scouts was never a priority among all the other activities in which I participated. 

But there was one aspect of my Girl Scouts experience that changed me forever: how it ended.
 
By the end of my second year in Troop 870, my fellow Girl Scouts and I were in the midst of preparing for the start of middle school – saying goodbye to things like recess and playing outside after school and swapping out our flavored Lip Smackers for (gasp!) colored lip gloss. Elementary school was ending, and with that, we faced the unknowns of a new school with new expectations and social pressures. Girl Scouts took the hit.
 
It all started when my troop voted down a camping trip because hairdryers weren’t permitted on the packing list. I remember complaining to my mom about it when she picked me up after our troop meeting, “But I don’t even use a hairdryer!” From there, everything went downhill. The rest of the girls became convinced that Girl Scouts wasn’t cool, and our troop disbanded before we started 6th grade.
 


No one ever describes middle school as the best years of their lives. For many young women, these “in between” years are our most vulnerable (and most painful), filled with uncertainty and hurt and questions and the seemingly insurmountable feeling of being alone. My Girl Scout troop disbanded on the brink of all of that, and though I knew I wasn’t ready for my Girl Scouts experience to end, I didn’t have the courage to voice the unpopular opinion. What 11-year-old does?
 


Girl Scouts, if we let it, can be the bridge that carries our young women through these most confusing years. It can be the sisterhood cheering them on as they take risks; as they strive to learn and grow and to pursue their dreams; as they find their own ways, big and small, to begin changing the world. A movement that builds girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place? I may not have had the courage to stand up for it at 11, but I do now.

- Norah Carroll

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