Christine Grubbs says she has two troops: one has five high school girls … the other is full of adult volunteers!
Christine’s secret to success as a Service Unit Manager, Troop Leader, Delegate, Council Connection Committee member, Day Camp Director and every other Girl Scout role she’s rocked (those are just the ones she currently holds), is recognizing the strengths of her volunteers and girls and using those to help them grow in ways they never knew they could.
“You would never tell a girl that you don’t like her, that she doesn’t fit in well with the group. Why would you ever do that to a volunteer? Everyone has their strengths. It’s just a matter of finding out what those strengths are and plugging them in.”
Christine’s Longview girl troop has been together since the first grade. She remembers the early years when the girls would suck on their fingers and twirl their hair, too timid to utter a syllable. This last cookie season as high schoolers, the same girls would take last year’s cookie order form and would start cold calling all last year’s customers. They are fearless, comfortable in the skills they have developed over the years, and their troop cookie sales average over 1,000 boxes per girl.
In nine years of Girl Scout volunteering, what was Christine’s favorite moment? It was when they saved Camp Evergreen.
A few years ago, the camp was underutilized, needed costly repairs and the idea was floated to sell the camp. Girls in the area rallied. They wrote handwritten letters, talked to the media, and made sure everyone knew that Camp Evergreen needed to keep its doors open.
But more than just talking about Camp Evergreen, they took action. The Girl Scouts in Longview realized that they needed more members, so more people would know about and use the camp. They recruited more girls, started more troops, asked adults to volunteer as leaders. At its lowest, the Community Day Camp at Camp Evergreen had 63 participants. This year they were up to 135 participants and going strong.
The Longview Girl Scouts are in full force thanks to the incredible leadership of Christine Grubbs and the incredible Girl Scouts she’s seen grow up in front of her eyes. Thank you for your service Christine!
