While entering the concert, girls filled up bins with food for Feed the Need. To date, River Valleys has collected 12,800 pounds of food for Feed the Need, and we need your help to reach our 20,000-pound goal.

How to Donate to Feed the Need

• Donate to your local food shelf and log a record of it on our website.

You can also log food donations already donated to other community initiatives, such as Stamp Out Hunger, which took place on Saturday, May 11, or Boy Scout’s Scouting for Food program, which ended March 23.

Feed the Need ends May 31—help us make a difference and feed 16,000 kids!

More than 150 volunteers put in 900 hours during the weekend to transform camp buildings into classrooms, creating Panther Camp. Student campers even have 1700 new books to check out following a community book drive to replace books destroyed in the fire.

First day activities included outdoor classes, lots of recess time to explore the camp and a few songs. Parents said that the kids came home excited, exhausted and slightly sunburned.

There are no further plans for the lease to extend beyond mid-June. The property remains for sale, and River Valleys asks volunteers to not visit the camp for safety and privacy reasons.

Access the Activities

• Visit: healthpoweredkids.org/login
• Username: gsrv
• Password: allinahealth

Earn the Allina Health Healthy Living Patch

Once Girl Scouts have completed two Health Powered Kids™ activities, please fill out this form and bring the confirmation email—on paper or on your phone—to a Girl Scout shop to redeem for a free limited edition patch. The patches will go fast, since only 2,000 are available.

On October 13, 2012, River Valleys’ girls, families and volunteers raked up and bagged 2 million pounds of leaves, soil and other debris from streets, parks and other public spaces. By keeping the leaves and other organic material out of storm sewers on Centennial Day of Service, girls helped fight the nutrient-fed excess algae growth that often chokes surface waters in urban areas.

Throughout the day, girls also stenciled 7,000 storm sewer entrances with an anti-pollution message. Many of the messages said: “Please Don’t Pollute. Drains To Mississippi River.”

“To mobilize 27,000 people on one day, and to keep this amount of organic material out of our rivers and streams, was just a phenomenal feat,” says Joan Nephew, the Freshwater Society’s executive director. “We are proud to have partnered with the Girl Scouts in this effort.

“And we are prouder still that many of the Girl Scouts have committed to repeating the cleanup this fall.”

The Freshwater Society and the Friends of the Minnesota Valley helped organize and coordinate Centennial Day of Service. The 3M company was the corporate sponsor.

The conversation at the Town Hall Meetings will cover five focus areas:

1. Expanded diversified funding
2. Programing and participation models
3. Technology optimization
4. Volunteer delivery model
5. Cookie Program

The Town Hall Meetings will build on the conversations held by delegates at January’s Open Space Summit, which focused on the central theme of creating an exciting future for the River Valleys community. For more details on the Open Space Summit, please read the Book of Proceedings.

Please review the Town Hall Meeting discussion questions and come prepared to participate in some collaborative and interactive discussions.

Locations + Dates

• Grace Lutheran Church (Mankato, MN)—Thursday, May 2
• St. Paul Service Center—Wednesday, May 8
• Brooklyn Center Service Center—Tuesday, May 14
• Rochester Service Center—Wednesday, May 15
• Webinar (Online)—Thursday, May 16

*Please note: To simplify our volunteers’ lives, we are canceling the previously scheduled May SUMITs and have transitioned to this combined meeting approach.

The $160,000 in donations will help to bring the power of the Girl Scout program to 10,600 girls, giving them the opportunity to grow as leaders and to become the next generation of women to change the world.

You can still be a part of the event by bidding on select items from our silent auction between Friday, April 26 and Friday, May 3.

You may also make a donation online or contact Stephanie Pommier by email or phone at 800-845-0787.

Images from the afternoon are available on Flickr.

Christine Pearson

Christine will be attending the Lakamaga Conference for the sixth time this year. She originally signed up to complete required trainings, but the networking, enrichment activities and service projects have kept her coming back. “I really enjoy the conference as a way to learn fun skills that I can bring back to the girls,” she says.

Christine’s most memorable experience was an evening sing-along around a fireplace. Participants were invited to lead a song, and then everyone shared why they liked singing it.

Christine leads a group at the conference that works on quilts in the Old Lodge art studio during downtime. “I have only been leading the project for two years, but in that time, we have been able to donate eight quilts to Project Linus and another six quilts to Bundles of Love,” she says.

Liz Cooney

Liz found a great deal of camaraderie as a new attendee and staff member at the 2012 Lakamaga Conference. “I’m always looking for ways to learn more and grow. The conference sounded like a wonderful opportunity for me as a staff member to interact with volunteers in a fun, relaxed environment,” she says.

Liz also wanted to expand her outdoor knowledge and skills, which she accomplished by starting a fire using flint rock and steel. “I came away as a stronger person with more skills and a better understanding of our volunteers, their needs and the girls we are all working for,” she says. In addition to attending again in 2013, Liz plans to lead an enrichment workshop.

Christine + Liz’ Advice to New Participants

• Take advantage of all the conference has to offer
• Share ideas and stories
• Listen to others
• Complete required training sessions
• Get out of your comfort zone
• Introduce yourself to someone new
• Try something new—you might surprise yourself
• Have fun and see what Girl Scouts are capable of!

Soon after her inquiry, River Valleys reached out and invited her to a volunteer recruitment event. She says, “I attended my first meeting and was asked if I wanted to co-lead a troop of Daisies with another volunteer, Kelly Christofferson. I was nervous at first, but Kelly and I decided that together we could lead the group of girls.”

Karen and Kelly’s troop has been going strong for five years and typically has around 17 girls. Although Karen doesn’t have a daughter in Girl Scouts, her troop has become very special to her. She spends a great deal of energy staying in contact with the parents and recruiting new members. A tool she loves to use is Shutterfly, where she can privately share pictures and troop updates with the families. She jokes, “I sometimes feel like I over-communicate.”

Karen and Kelly do a lot for their troop, but they get some help along the way from their ready and willing troop parents. “My advice to people is to organize things in a way so you don’t have to do everything yourself,” explains Karen. “There are so many resources available, it is important to realize what parents are good at and what they can commit to, even if it is something small.”

Karen’s favorite Girl Scout memory was two years ago at her wedding. She invited her troop to her special day on Memorial Day weekend. Many of the girls attended with their families, and Kelly’s daughter even walked Karen down the aisle. “I was so surprised at how many girls came since it was over a holiday weekend,” says Karen, “At the reception, they manned the candy table and filled the dance floor. We even did a few Girl Scout dances!”

No longer the new person in town, Karen now has a strong network in the Rochester area. Through her experience as a volunteer, she gained a best friend, her co-leader Kelly, and built a Girl Scout family.

Trivia: How many Girl Scout cookies were eaten at camp last summer?

Did you know that you can use Cookie Credits and FUNds to help pay for camp?

Pay for camp with these funds:

• Cookie Credits from the 2012 Cookie Program (expire August 31, 2013)
• Cookie Credits from the 2013 Cookie Program (expire August 31, 2014)
• FUNds from the 2012 Fall Product sale (expire August 31, 2013)

Register for a camp session up until two weeks before it starts (unless it fills up earlier).

Camp staff are gearing up for the best summer yet! If you ever wanted to paddle a kayak, learn how to shoot an arrow or brush up on your s’mores skills, join us this spring and summer.

Questions? Email our camp staff.