What comes to mind with the words, “Girl Scouts”?
Most likely, it’s what the Girl Scouts are notorious for, and that’s their delicious boxes of cookies. But in reality, the Scouts are much more.
To one LHS senior, Lindsay Nuxoll, the Scouts have a much deeper meaning than cookies and patches.
“Well, growing up I was bullied a lot. [Girl Scouts] gave me a safe haven,” Nuxoll said.
Nuxoll first joined the Scouts when she was 5 years old, after wanting to be like her older sister and to be an older sister herself.
Girl Scouts is for girls grades 2-12. According to girlscouts.org, girl scouting builds girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. The girls get opportunities that might not have been previously offered to them such as camping and fun trips with their troop.
“I’ve gotten to make blankets for hospital patients, I’ve gotten to sing Christmas carols to veterans, I’ve gotten to send care packages overseas, and we’ve gotten letters back with pictures of soldiers crying,” Nuxoll said of her experiences. “It’s really the simple things in life that people don’t cherish, that’s what the Scouts mean.”
Nuxoll also spoke of her few frustrations that come with the Scouts.
“It’s a huge stigma that to be a Scout you have to be in elementary school,” said Nuxoll. “I go out on 12-hour cookie-sale days and people ask me, ‘Where are my girls at?’ as if I’m too old to be in the Scouts. But it wasn’t originally made for little girls.”
Girl Scouts of America gives older girls in the troop the opportunity to receive scholarship money from every box of cookies sold. Fifty cents per box adds up, and Nuxoll said she had around $3,000 set aside for college.
Nuxoll has worked hard for 13 years to get where she’s at and said she encourages young girls to join the Scouts.
“Knowing you did something good and it wasn’t really expected of you gives you a good feeling inside,” she said. “I know that’s super-cheesy but it really does. You don’t know how much you need that until you’re in that dark place where you feel like you’re all alone. [Then] you do something for someone else and you realize you’re not.”
That experience and knowledge gained couldn’t be replaced with anything, she said.
“They helped me stay true to myself and rid the bad people in my life,” Nuxoll explained. “I learned a lot through the Scouts that I think a lot of people should learn.”