THE GIRL SCOUTS OF LOWER PRICE HILL NEED TO SELL 1,500 BOXES OF COOKIES TO GO TO CAMP. BUT THEY CAN’T TALK ABOUT CAMP. NOT YET. THEY DON’T NEED FALSE HOPE.
Cincinnati Enquirer, February 8, 2015
As the after-school program at Oyler School wrapped up, a group of 13 girls gathered behind Stella Luggen and Sarah Groeschen at the door of Oyler School’s cafeteria. The girls, clad in pink puffy coats, Hello Kitty hats and furry boots, were as young as 6 and as old as 11. With their small hands folded into one another’s in friendship and for safety, they walked past black trash bags piled taller than they were. They walked across a broken-brick walkway. They walked past a silver, metal-perforated fence with R.I.P. Brian scrawled in black spray paint. They didn’t notice any of it. All they could think about was the Girl Scout meeting they were on their way to. “Tell me about camp,” a girl asks Luggen, who with Groeschen works at the community center and are assistant troop leaders. “We’ll get to sleep in tents or a lodge,” Luggen explains. “There will be swimming and games. There will be kickball.”
To most troops, Girl Scout Camp is a given. For Girl Scout Camp 49632, it’s a dream. Girl Scout Troop 49632 is Lower Price Hill’s first in so long nobody remembers the last time there was a traditional troop in the neighborhood. It’s so new, the night ahead is only their sixth meeting. And, of course, like everywhere else in the nation, it’s Girl Scout Cookie time in Lower Price Hill. They’ll have to sell 1,500 boxes of cookies – $4 boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas and Trefoils – for all 17 girls in the troop to go.
But camp isn’t a sure thing.
This is the kind of Girl Scout troop where Ebony Butts had to work to convince the Girl Scout Council there could even be a troop. This is the kind of Girl Scout troop where Butts never even considered that they could have uniforms; the girl’s parents can’t afford them. This is the kind of Girl Scout troop where the $65 cost-per-girl to go to camp isn’t the kind of activity a parent just scrawls out a check for. None of that is a deterrent for Butts, who is the director of youth outreach for Community Matters, the social service agency in the heart of Lower Price Hill. “The reality is it may not happen,” Butts said. “When I tell people I need to sell 1,500 boxes, they look at me like I lost my mind. When I tell them why, they generally purchase a box.” Leslie Rich, community engagement team leader for the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio, said Troop 49632 is the “first traditional troop in Lower Price Hill in a very very long time.” “This is a really big deal that we’re creating something sustainable in the community,” Rich said. “Girl Scouts isn’t just cookies and crafts and camping. It is a real leadership development program for girls.”
The Lower Price Hill troop joins 17,000 Girls Scouts locally.
Inside Community Matters, the girls convene at long tables in a sparse, but tidy room. Inspirational Cincinnati State posters decorate the room that’s used for GED tutoring during the day. There’s a brief scuffle over the last “rolly chair,” an orange office chair that has seen better days, but on this night means a fun spin around the room. Animals crackers and water in donated Hudepohl paper beer cups are passed around. On tonight’s agenda: Sign-making for upcoming cookie sales outside of the West Price Hill Kroger.
First though, the girls raise three fingers in the air for the Girl Scout Promise. A hush falls over the room, 9-year-old Gymila Jeffreys starts the group off.
“On my honor, I will try to serve God and my country; To help people at all times; and to live by the Girl Scout law.” They accidentally leave out the part about serving God, so they repeat it.
It’s the kind of project Girl Scouts all over Cincinnati were likely doing in the midst of the group’s biggest fundraiser of the year. But life outside the walls of the community center are unlike any other Cincinnati neighborhood. Though it’s small – just 16 blocks on the west edge of downtown – people don’t ever leave the the mostly Appalachian neighborhood of about 1,000 residents. Life expectancy is around 68, 20 years less than just a few miles away in Mount Adams. The high school has a 47 percent graduation rate.
Last fall for a story that ran in November, the Enquirer spent months with four Lower Price Hill teenagers. “I just walk around all day long, in a circle,” 16-year-old Kelsey McLean told The Enquirer. “That’s all there is down here, a circle. What I’m looking for is something to do, anything to do.” Butts knows that’s true. She sees the girls hanging out on street corners. “There really isn’t anything to do,” Butts said. “They never leave this neighborhood because nobody ever told them, ‘Look, this is not it.’ “It’s generational,” she said. “Their mom is still here, their grandma is here. Their aunts and uncles are still here. So what do they need to leave the neighborhood for?”
When she decided to bring a troop to the community she found there was no troop on the west side of Cincinnati that was available to these girls. You had to go to a certain school or attend a certain church to be in those troops. At Butts’ first meeting in November, a pizza party rally, she ended up with just four girls: her daughter, Jordyn, her two nieces and another leader’s daughter. So she stood outside Oyler and talked to girls there about Girl Scouts. She stuffed fliers into mailboxes. She knocked on doors and talked to parents.
Moms were receptive, but hesitant. They were worried about the cost; they didn’t want to walk their daughters from the after school program to the meeting. The Girl Scout Council covered the $15 registration fee for each girl. Luggen and Groeschen promised to walk the girls to the meeting. Butts tried again on Dec. 10. This time, 20 girls showed up. “People started to trust what I was saying,” Butts said. Jamya Jones, 11, a dab of black marker on her white T-shirt, said she looks forward to the weekly meetings. “I like that a lot of girls come together,” she said. “Just in case people don’t have friends, they have some here.” On her part of the poster, she carefully lettered the message: “You need to be happy. That’s why we have Girl Scouts.”
Selling $4 boxes of cookies in a neighborhood where the median income is $9,600 a year is no easy task. In most troops the top sellers win prizes, they get to go to camp. Here, in a parent meeting, everyone agreed: “It’s either all of us or none of us.” There are no prizes, save that. As the girls fill in bubble letters on the signs with pink and black stripes and tiny heart patterns – or as one 7-year-old did, a two-story house – on the posters, there’s no talk about camp.
That’s on purpose.
“It gives them something to do after school, something different,” Bolin said. “I want them to get out in the world.”
Buy cookies from Girl Scout Camp 49632
Cost: $4 per box
Online
E-mail Jen Walters at jen@cmcincy.org with orders.
Then send the money in her care to 2104 Saint Michael St., Cincinnati, Ohio, 45204.
How businesses can help
Companies can sponsor a Cookies & Milk Break. The cookies are provided by and served by Girl Scouts between March 6 and March 29. Cookies must be pre-ordered and will be credited to the troop specified. Call Brittany Troescher at 513-619-1434 or brittanytroescher@girlscoutsofwesternohio.org to plan.
In person
March 7
9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
East Price Hill Kroger
3609 Warsaw Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio, 45204
March 14
12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
East Price Hill Kroger
3609 Warsaw Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio, 45204
March 21
9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Sam’s Club
5375 North Bend Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45247
March 21
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Westwood Kroger
2310 Ferguson Road
Cincinnati, Ohio 45238
March 22
9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
East Price Hill Kroger
3609 Warsaw Avenue
Cincinnati, Ohio, 45204
