by Jackie Nunnery
It has been just two years since the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced they would allow girls to join its Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts programs. In that time, roughly 31,000 girls have signed up in search of adventure, according to the BSA—but these girls are also finding leadership opportunities, life lessons and lifelong friends in the process.
When the BSA first announced the historic change in 2017, it was after 107 years of programming just for boys and in response to “years of requests from families and girls.” The BSA indicated their research had also shown that many parents were interested in “participating in scouting as a family.”
And for local girls in Scouts BSA—as the Boy Scouts are now known—family members are often how they learn about, and become interested in, scouting. Emma Kimball, 12, a member of Troop 250G in Northumberland County, has a brother in scouting. Kimball had tried Girl Scouts, but found she was “more interested in what my brother was doing.”
Olivia Metsala, 12, another Troop 250G member, also tried Girl Scouts in the first…
