Media Releases

Join us March 12

The council invites everyone to renew the Girl Scout Promise
at 7:12 p.m. (or 19:12 military time) on March 12
to mark our 100th birthday.

Service centers in Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Johnson City will be open
from 6:30 p.m. – 8 p.m. that evening for big parties, complete with birthday cake!

To celebrate our 100^th anniversary in a BIG way,
we’re having a BIG cookie blowout
to conclude our 2012 cookie season!

All service centers will  function as virtual cookie booths, all day long, from 8:30 AM – 8:00 PM.

If you are planning on bringing your troop or service unit to one of the service centers, PLEASE LET US KNOW SO WE CAN PLAN ACCORDINGLY. Send a quick e-mail to css@girlscoutcsa.org with the number of people AND the specific service center where we’ll see you (Chattanooga, Johnson City or Knoxville).

Service units might also be planning community activities and parties that will be more convenient and closer to attend. Check with your service unit for more details in the coming days.

Take lots of pictures of yourself and your friends, and we’ll post them on a special section of our website.

Girl Scouts Forever Green, our 100th Anniversary Take Action Project, is a global effort to improve the environment and protect natural resources. Our council is participating in the Reuse portion of the project in February and making a yearlong commitment to environmental efforts.

For your convenience, a single website has all the information you need to complete the project from beginning to end. Simply go to http://girlscouts.org/gsforevergreen/ for all the details you need to be Forever Green.

Help reduce waste!

Here’s one project you can do to help reduce our use of plastics.

Learn how to turn an old t-shirt into a reusable bag.

The Girl Scout Council of the Southern Appalachians announces the promotion of Kimberly Lauth to the position of chief operating officer.

“Kim has consistently demonstrated the capacity to connect our vision and strategy to execution strategies, daily operations and decision making,” said Booth Kammann, the council’s CEO.

Lauth began working with the Girl Scouts council as a consultant in 2009 and joined the staff in 2010.  Most recently she served as vice president of advancement and service delivery. The council serves girls from Southwest Virginia, through all of East Tennessee, and into North Georgia. Its mission is to empower girls.

“Not every girl will feel driven to be an astronaut or dream of being president of the United States – but every girl will have many times in her life when she needs to have faith in her abilities, know her values and belief in her capacity to effect change,” Lauth said. “No matter how big a girl’s dreams are there is no better place to equip her to meet the challenges of the future than in Girl Scouting.”

Lauth holds the CFRE (certified fundraising executive) designation. She has worked for a variety of nonprofit organizations, including the role of executive director for the East Tennessee Veterans Memorial Association, which built the veterans memorial in Knoxville’s Worlds Fair Park. She has also served as the past president of the Smoky Mountain Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and past president of the Smoky Mountain Planned Giving Council.

Dear Girl Scout Member,

The future of Girl Scouting has arrived. GSUSA National President Connie L. Lindsey and I had the privilege of officially declaring 2012 the Year of the Girl and launching our monumental cause campaign, known as ToGetHerThere, over the past two days. During those two historic and inspiring days, Connie and I experienced firsthand the enormous reservoir of goodwill and respect that exists for Girl Scouting, from Katie Couric’s moving interview of a Girl Scout troop in Philadelphia to Republican and Democratic congressional leaders coming together in support of Girl Scouting and ToGetHerThere.

What a remarkable and special thing Juliette Gordon Low founded nearly 100 years ago. I believe she would be very proud of all that we have accomplished, and of the boldness and ambition of ToGetHerThere. During my inaugural address at the National Council Session, I said that we were bigger and stronger than we sometimes thought we were. I meant it. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we showed what a force we are in this nation. Only Girl Scouts, with its size and history, could have commanded the kind of national media attention we received, which ranged from the New York Times and The Associated Press to the Washington Post and MSNBC. Only Girl Scouts has the legacy and credibility to call on the nation to focus on girls and their development as leaders that our country will need.

It was exhilarating, but it’s time to get to work. We must capitalize on the momentum. First, we as Girl Scout members must take the lead. If you haven’t visited www.ToGetHerThere.org and signed the pledge, do it now. Take that first symbolic step. We are more than three million strong, so let’s get everyone, beginning with those of us within the Girl Scout Movement, to take the pledge to get her there. Can we get to 10,000 pledges, or 100,000—or, perhaps 1 million? I am challenging each and every one of us in Girl Scouting to help us reach that milestone. What a testament it would be to the power of our cause campaign if we could have a million people sign the pledge. And once you sign the pledge, spread the word. Tell everyone you know about ToGetHerThere. The Web site explains the cause elegantly and well, and it’s a great place for people to start exploring how they might participate in a girl’s life, including by serving as a Girl Scout volunteer.

There is urgency to our cause because girls, whether they are Girl Scouts or not, need us now. Their future won’t wait, and neither will ours. I hope you sense the pride and energy that I feel for our Movement having experienced these two extraordinary days. Let’s set out on a new century of service determined to see that we break down those barriers that impede far too many girls from realizing their leadership potential. Let’s make it happen—because we know that when a girl succeeds, so does the nation. Together, we will get her there.

Sincerely,

Anna Maria Chávez
Chief Executive Officer
Girl Scouts of the USA

© 2012 Girl Scouts of the United States of America.
All Rights Reserved. 420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018

ToGetHerThere.org: Looking for ways to support girls? The choices they make start with you.

Girl Scouts of the USA has declared 2012 the “Year of the Girl.”and we will celebrate until spring of 2013. The special year will culminate with a State of the Girl Summit. During this time, Girl Scout councils will mix observations of our 100th anniversary with efforts to create a sense of urgency around girls’ issues.

GSUSA believes the greatest challenge a girl faces today is the barrier to leadership. We are stating the issue in two parts:

• A serious under representation of women in senior leadership positions of every kind.
• A whole series of obstacles standing between girls and their attaining (or even aspiring to) these positions.

Our goal is to – in  a single generation of 20 to 25 years – attain balanced leadership in the United States in business, science and technology, law, politics, academia, and every other major field of endeavor.

We believe this is both important and achievable. It fits squarely within the tradition and mission of Girl Scouts. We are the right organization and now is the right time to issue this call to action

The call to action is: ToGetHerThere. We’re reaching out to a whole host of supporters and partners with the message: Join us. Together we can get her there. The ToGetHerThere campaign will be launched on January 31 in New York and February 1 in Washington, D.C.

A related plan is to raise an unprecedented amount of money for Girl Scouts – for girls and girls’issues: $1 billion over five years.

Girl Scouts is committedto empowering our daughters, sisters, nieces, and students to reach their full potential as future leaders in society.

CNN story showcases the true value our Girl Scout financial literacy programs.