Girl Talk Success

Last Saturday I completed a big task of my internship, which was to host an annual Girl Scout program titled "Girl Talk." Each year they try to pick a college campus on which to host the event and center the day's activities around a certain Girl/Women-empowering theme where the girls can learn pertinent and helpful lifestyle knowledge. This year the event was titled "Fitness to Fashion" and ran from 11 am-nearly 4 pm. Girl Scouts from Keizer, Portland, Salem, Lebanaon, Yamhill, and McMinnville came to campus on Saturday to engage in day-long activities so they could earn one of their GS patches.

Before my internship I didn't personally know a whole lot about Girl Scouts, but throughout the program have picked up a lot of knowledge. There are many connotations that come with being a Girl Scout, I might even go as far as labeling them as stigmas. While the organization has religious foundations, and many of the messages permeated through the activities are religious in nature, the group is diverse and extremely inclusive.

As part of the program, I coordinated with Christine Kirk to lead an hour session of Zumba, after which the group of about 45 enjoyed lunch complimented by a guest speaker who works in the fashion industry as a professor at PDX Art Institute and in product development for NIKE. The goal of the Zumba and guest speaker were to teach the girls that there are fun ways to A) stay in shape and get a good cardio workout and B) be interested in Fashion and parlay that interest into a lucrative and rewarding career.

After lunch we broke out into different "learning sessions", four total, which focused on healthy skin care/diet, Animal rights, renewable fibers used in fashion and clothing products, and media-induced body/fashion image standards.

The four topics are very disparate, but have overlapping themes that helped to tie them together. The breakout sessions encouraged hands on participation like visiting the bookstore and writing letters condemning the use of animal testing in cosmetics production.

The day long program culminated with a campus tour, encouraging and fielding questions from girls and emphasizing the importance of a college education.

The program was an overwhelming success and provided information, activities, and leadership for the girls that I feel they got a lot out of. I was very complimented by my internship boss and the troop leaders who were present, all of whom where very complimentary and supportive of my organization and leadership skills. It's nice to be rewarded with praise, especially after putting loads of time and effort into making it a successful, well rounded program.