troops | camp | on my own | families   |  volunteers | SUs | resources | communities  |  our future | about | join | give | jobs

Contact info and directions to the Service Center

• GSEM South outdoor program centers
• About our council area
• Program goals
• Troop, Group and Individual members
• Levels of Girl Scouts
• Adult enrichment
• Outdoor programs

We are part of the largest, most popular volunteer organization for girls in the world.  Our parent organization, Girl Scouts of the USA in New York, is one of the few service organizations with a United States Congressional Charter.  It is part of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts that brings the movement to more than 108 countries worldwide. 

We are dedicated to the interests and needs of girls, with a mission to inspire them with the highest ideals of character, conduct, patriotism and service so they become productive and resourceful citizens.  Acceptance of the Girl Scout Promise and Law is the only prerequisite for membership, which is open to all girls aged 5 through 17 and all adult men and women.

Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts accounts for 800 of the 213,300 troops and groups in Girl Scouts of the USA and 14,000+ of its nearly 6 million members.  Our council area stretches from Franklin in the northwest to Marshfield in the northeast and includes most of the mainland south, as well as Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.  This territory is richly varied, from the small cities of New Bedford and Brockton to the summer resorts along Cape Cod.  We serve busy South Shore suburbs and tranquil coastal villages.  Our largest city is the old whaling port of New Bedford.  Our smallest town is Aquinnah, on the remote cliffs of Martha's Vineyard.

The council owns and maintains five outdoor program centers in addition to its central offices.  Camping, the environment and survival skills are central to the Girl Scout program, and the properties provide sites that are both hospitable and challenging:

Wind-in-the-Pines Girl Scout Center in Plymouth occupies 145 acres of woods and water in the heart of GSCSM.  It is the council's premiere outdoor activity site and hosts resident and day camps, troop and family camping and volunteer training.  It’s home to the new Environmental Discovery Center and has been designated a Lou Henry Hoover Memorial Sanctuary by Girl Scouts of the USA.

Greenbrier and Edith Read Girl Scout Centers in Acushnet and Norton are smaller facilities where we hold day camps and host troop camping amid widely varied vegetation and terrain.  Our island properties, Taupawshas on Nantucket and Wampanoag on Martha's Vineyard, provide local troop camping opportunities as well as annual adventures like long-distance bicycling and primitive camping.  We run summer day camp at Wampanoag and lease a site for day camp on Cape Cod.

Equally important sites for Girl Scouts are the hundreds of schools, libraries and churches where troops meet every week.  The heart of the Girl Scout program is in the community, close to home.

The Girl Scout organization welcomes all girls aged 5 to 17.  Because we want their Girl Scout experiences to be useful in real life, we strive for variety in our troops to prepare the members for life in the real world amid the richest possible mixture of races, backgrounds, religions, opinions and personalities.  Ideally, the girls should be exposed to different customs, people and thinking from what they are used to at home.

Although the council area is predominantly White (83% of the school population), that statistic includes a large Portuguese population, especially around New Bedford Brockton and on the Vineyard.  6% of our school children are African-American; 2% are Asian; and 6% are Latina.  A small number of Native Americans live on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard.   We fully support Girl Scouts of the USA's emphasis on increased diversity of every kind, including racial, ethnic, religious and socio-economic backgrounds.

We serve one of every six girls in Kindergarten and grades 4-6, and one in four girls from grades 1-3.  Fewer junior high and high school girls remain in Girl Scouts, though the ones who stay achieve at a very high level.  The opportunities open to teenage Girl Scouts are well worth staying for, and publicizing those benefits -- travel, education, career preparation -- to our younger members is important.

Girl Scouts starts in Kindergarten and runs through high school.  The content of the program pens as a girl matures, but it has four goals and they are evident from the beginning.

The first is to help each girl develop to her full potential.   We want her to realize her strengths and work on her talents.  The whole girl emerges this way, growing into a woman who is competent and self-confident.  Developing potential includes healthy trial and error, too, which makes a girl open to new experiences and challenges.  It probes for new skills and abilities constantly.

Goal number two is to help her relate well to others.   She learns understanding and tolerance and forms relationships in a respectful atmosphere.  The Girl Scout troop is unique in most girls' lives; it includes older and younger children from different neighborhoods, all involved by choice.   It is more democratic than school, and involves group decision-making and compromise.  Girls learn early that to negotiate and thrive in the troop, they have to honor the basic rights of others. 

The third goal is to inspire values that will guide her actions and decisions.  We commit to a high moral purpose and demonstrate it regularly.  Each girl develops her own convictions based on ethics and will reexamine her ideals as she matures. 

The final goal is to promote community service and voluntarism.  The girl will improve society with her talents and leadership if she is genuinely concerned about her neighbors and environment.  This goal combines the other three.  The girl has developed her own skills so she has something to offer.  She has learned to work in cooperation with others.  She has a moral code that guides her to do the right thing.  The quality of community life affects her life and the whole of society; we encourage her to use her skills to work with others for the benefit of all. 

Most Girl Scouts are in troops, which are groups of girls who meet regularly under the guidance of a team family adults.  These volunteers help the girls plan and carry out a wide variety of program activities, all meant to steer them toward the Girl Scout goals.  If joining a troop isn't possible, a girl may register as an individual member so she can attend events and take trips.  She can also use the Girl Scout handbook for her age level and earn Girl Scout recognitions.  

Large-scale events and programs are developed by the council staff and offered to all troops, bringing them together in a central location or regionally.  These include special activities like career days, trips and camping weekends that broaden girls’ experience outside of her own troop and town.  

Since 1992, Girl Scouts has run very successful programs as part of school curricula.  Girl Scouts in School for elementary and Inside Out for middle and junior high school students have served over 15,000 children in southeastern Massachusetts as part of their regular school days.  The quality of the programs is evidenced by the caliber of the professionals who endorse it.  Massachusetts Teacher of the Year Louise Murphy, who champions Inside Out as part of her curriculum in New Bedford, was named one of the Top Ten National Affiliate Teachers by the American Association of Family and Consumer Science. 

Most Girl Scouts are part of troops with girls around the same age so their activities can be interesting and challenging to all of them.  Troops fall into four levels based on age, and each one focuses on what girls need and want at that stage of their development.  Each level of Girl Scouts has a unique form of troop government, its own badges, patches and pins, and its own handbooks and special books and videos.   

Our youngest members are Daisy Girl Scouts.  They 5 years old and in Kindergarten. Their program is geared toward the first two goals of self-discovery and getting along in a group.  They may earn four patches about safety, technology, teamwork, community and the environment, and one as they graduate to Brownie level, but at this age their concept of earning recognitions is fairly limited.  

Brownie Girl Scouts are in first, second and third grade.  Now they can understand the fundamentals of all four Girl Scout goals and they are old enough to understand a patch as a recognition of achievement.  They earn triangular Try-It recognitions for activities based on a particular subject that last for one day, a few days or a few weeks.  They do community service, go on short trips and begin to camp out overnight.  

Junior Girl Scouts are in fourth, fifth and sixth grade. Their program needs, like their lives at this age, are complex.  More responsibility, challenge and adventure are necessary, and leaders gradually evolve into advisors.  There are a hundred badges that Juniors can earn, as well as more challenging recognitions called signs.   They are eligible for religious awards and leadership pins, as they better understand the goals of values and community service. 

Teen Girl Scouts are in sixth through twelfth grade.  At this stage, they can earn recognitions with more demanding requirements and prerequisites.  Now they are aiming for the highest awards in Girl Scouts, the Silver and Gold Awards.  These are long-term achievements that require planning, organizing and executing a project as well as earning pre-requisite Girl Scout recognitions.  They also earn leadership pins for assisting with younger troops, at summer camp and at special events. 

In addition to the universal program that all Girl Scouts follow, GSCSM offers events created by members of our professional Program Team.  Challenge and adventure programs, museum overnights, technology workshops, cultural and science fairs, hikes, camping trips, island adventures and numerous one-day badge projects run from September to June every year.  Leadership teams can borrow packaged programs containing everything a troop needs for a do-it-yourself experience.  Another convenient program offering is Troop Customs, in which consultants design thematic programs to suit the interests and level of a particular troop.  These are delivered when and where the troop requests them.  

Teen Girl Scouts are eligible for extended trips and seminars, and special weekends of activities and workshops.  Great Escape outdoor weekends, career exploration events and national and international programs sponsored by GSUSA are just some of the many rewards for girls who reach the highest level of Girl Scouts.  They compete for invitations to the Freedom and Leadership Youth Conference in Valley Forge.  Outdoor, team-building and challenge programs also provide constant practice at leadership, resourcefulness and problem solving. 

For adult members, GSCSM offers a full course of basic, level and enrichment training, integrated with peer and professional support meetings throughout the year.   

GSCSM’s outdoor programs are extensive, from one-day events to two-week resident camps.  We run day camps on our own properties, and sometimes on leased sites for the convenience of members who live far from our facilities.  Our Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard Girl Scout Centers give our girls more abundant choices than most councils can offer, and almost every sort of camping and outdoor activity can be held at Wind-in-the-Pines in Plymouth.  We offer family camping in the spring and fall and troop camping all year there, with winterized lodges available.  Summer day camps run at our Acushnet, Norton, Plymouth and Martha's Vineyard sites, and at central locations on Cape Cod.  Resident camps are in Plymouth and on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket during the summer.  The camps are run by a combination of paid staff and volunteer counselors.  We offer special weeks for swimming and boating, backpacking, rock climbing, horseback riding, survival training, cycling, wildlife study, astronomy and performing arts and a full menu of standard camp favorites.  GSCSM is the only all-girl organization in the area with its own indoor climbing wall.

Providing program and adult services in GSCSM costs over $174 per girl, per year. GSCSM earns money to cover this cost in several ways. 

Our most important sources are the cookie sale in the spring and a magazine, nuts and candy sale in the fall.  Both relate to the Girl Scout program.  They teach girls about making and reaching goals, handling money and entrepreneurship.    

Another source of revenue is the United Way.  We are an active member of five United Ways: Attleboro/Taunton, Cape Cod, New Bedford and Old Colony.    

We offer several opportunities for individual giving throughout the year.  We send appeals to supporters in the spring and during the holidays.  Our Friends and Family campaign asks the families of our girl members to support their council at the time of membership registration, since their dues go entirely to Girl Scouts of the USA in New York.   

Our income from sales and donations is invested in camp property improvement, program development and equipment, and subsidy of council-wide programs to keep participation fees for troops lower than cost.  It pays for recruiting and training leaders, internal and external public relations and providing financial assistance to those who could not otherwise afford to participate in Girl Scouts. 

The council is guided by the needs, interests and expectations of our girl members.  In Girl Scouts, they discover the fun, friendship and power of girls together.  Through the many enriching experiences we offer, they can grow courageous and strong.