I'm going to toot my own horn for a minute

Well, actually my granddaughter's horn. 

She is a Cub Scout. One of the first female Cub Scouts in the area. She got into Scouting because her brothers are both Boy Scouts and her dad is a Scout leader. She and her mom would go to every family campout they had. When BSA decided to include girls, she was in the Girl Scouts but wasn't very happy with the Girl Scout program. She loves to camp and do outdoor activities and Girl Scouts is geared differently. She talked her mom into becoming a Cub Scout den leader and the local Scout pack agreed to try it out as long as they could get enough girls to form a den. 

Hanna promptly went to school and talked 15 of her friends into joining Cub Scouts, officially forming an all-girls den.

BSA awarded her Scout Of The Year in 2022 for her efforts in recruiting.  

One of the merit badges she worked on her first year was a community service badge. She had to perform a service for the good of the community. With that in mind, she and her mother contacted the National Park Service at Ft. Sumpter and Ft. Moultrie National Historic Park, here in Charleston and they went out for the NPS Volunteer day. They were the only people to show up. They helped the staff with landscaping, weeding, and trash pickup for the day. Hanna formed a pretty good relationship with the park staff and has continued to go out to help them. The park staff was so thrilled at having her continue to volunteer, they nominated her for the Youth and Young Adult, George and Helen Hartzog Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service for 2022.  

Impact Award: Youth and Young Adult Category 

This award recognizes a single individual age 30 or under (non-Veteran), 35 or under (for Veterans), who has made a meaningful impact for their park or program.

Hannah Murray in her Cub Scout uniform ready to volunteer on her 6th birthday at Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park.

Hannah Murray

Region 1, 2, 4 (Southeast) | Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park

Hannah Murray (age 6) is a reoccurring youth Volunteer-In-Parks who works at Fort Moultrie doing physical/ landscaping projects. The site needs consistent maintenance and upkeep due to weeds and invasive species in the historic fort. This is a difficult task as it must be done by hand and can be compounded when experiencing the summer heat. Hannah continually visits the Fort to help staff complete this necessary work. This is a never-ending battle that she looks forward to tackling and she often looks to recruit other children to help her.

Hannah is a Cub Scout who not only loves working to improve the Fort but, serves as an ambassador to the park as well, talking with others her age to come experience the park. She comes to the park often to participate in events like National Public Lands Day and Park Day to volunteer and give back, improving the historic landscape at the Fort’s grounds. For her birthday, Hannah elected to come to Fort Moultrie to weed the parade ground with staff. The Cub Scouts organization recognized Hannah as Cub Scout of the Year in 2022 because of her efforts in recruiting new youth volunteers to the park and encouraging others to learn about their local history.

Here's the link to the NPS page. There aren't a lot of volunteers that get these awards. They are given out by region. With as many national parks as we have, I'm surprised there aren't more people nominated. 

https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/2022-george-and-helen-hartzog-regional-awards-for-outstanding-volunteer-service.htm?fbclid=IwAR3gS5ccAOLsniEHCWYrHXRcS1Nn8IYKf2r7zWDXRkKpUrM8aeRnu3egvHI#impact-youth

that's awesome!

You have all the reason in the world to be proud of her! Clearly you raised incredible children, who, in turn, are doing the same. Bravo for a job well done!!

That's fantastic!

About 15 years DW and I were Girl Scout leaders with a combined troop of 10-12 year old and 14-16 year old girls.

The Girl Scouts really seriously lost the plot at the national level around that time.  They completely jettisoned all of the practical skills and experiences units and badge program in favor of yet more endless yakking about "journeys". 

This was just more anti-bullying, inclusion propaganda.  NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT - but that attitude and example should just be the price of admission to being a Scout, not the entire point of the organization's existence.  So instead of learning and doing interesting new things, these kids were basically stuck in a 2-hour guidance counselor lecture a couple of times a month.  They were bored, we were frustrated; we disbanded it shortly thereafter.

So good on the Boy Scouts for filling that vacuum and good on your granddaughter for diving into it head first!

Very impressive! 

In reply to Duke :

That's why I stopped buying girl scout cookies.  Can't reward bad decision making from the top level execs.

Indy - Guy said:

In reply to Duke :

That's why I stopped buying girl scout cookies.  Can't reward bad decision making from the top level execs.

Plus the Aldi brand ones are half the price, just as good if not better, and available year round. 

Toyman, my 8 year old is joining cub Scouts this year, hopefully Hannah can serve as a good role model for her and our local chapter. 

Duke said:

That's fantastic!

About 15 years DW and I were Girl Scout leaders with a combined troop of 10-12 year old and 14-16 year old girls.

The Girl Scouts really seriously lost the plot at the national level around that time.  They completely jettisoned all of the practical skills and experiences units and badge program in favor of yet more endless yakking about "journeys". 

This was just more anti-bullying, inclusion propaganda.  NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT - but that attitude and example should just be the price of admission to being a Scout, not the entire point of the organization's existence.  So instead of learning and doing interesting new things, these kids were basically stuck in a 2-hour guidance counselor lecture a couple of times a month.  They were bored, we were frustrated; we disbanded it shortly thereafter.

So good on the Boy Scouts for filling that vacuum and good on your granddaughter for diving into it head first!

 

Girl Scouts really dropped the ball. My daughter-in-law was the Girl Scout leader for Hanna's group. Hanna was watching what her brothers were doing at Scouts and she really wanted to participate in a similar program. My DIL tried to expand the program beyond what was acceptable by the local leadership and got so much pushback from leadership to toe the line that she and Hanna lost interest. That was about the time the local BSA Troop and Pack lost their sponsor who was pretty set against girls in the BSA. Their new sponsor is a little more open-minded so the pack agreed to give the girls a try at Scouting.

Super huge congratulations to your little one, Toyman! That's a strong kiddo to make it in a world that wasn't 'made' for her. 

This is for sure very TOOT-worthy!  Congrats to you and the family!  That's super cool.