In the United States today, there are approximately 2.3 million young girls involved with Girl Scouts, according to the Girl Scouts official webpage. However, graduating from high school doesn’t mean involvement with the organization has to stop. 

Iowa State Campus Scouts is an organization dedicated to helping young Girl Scouts learn, succeed and continue on their path as a scout.

“Our main goal is really to help area girl scouts,” said Kristina Grubbs, a junior in animal science and the president of Iowa State Campus Scouts. “We try to do a lot of stuff to help the girl scouts earn their badges, bridge from one level to the next and whatever they need help with, we’re around.”

In doing so, the Campus Scouts plan and hold events for Girl Scouts where they do activities and play games to help the young girls understand the Girl Scout Law. The Girl Scout Law is essentially a code of ethics for all Girls Scouts to understand and follow before they can move up to the next rank of scouts.

One of the main events for the Daisies, the youngest level of scouts, is called the Pedal Picking Event which takes place at the Girl Scouts Camp.

“It’s an event for Daisies where we try to help them earn their flower pedals, each of which correspond to a different part of the Girl Scout Law,” Grubbs said. “There are ten different parts and they have to earn all ten of the pedals to move up from Daisies to Brownies, so we try to help out with that.”

Even thought the Campus Scouts work very closely with Girl Scouts, anyone is eligible to join and men are encouraged to get involved with the organization as well.

Although the majority of the members of the organization have been a part of Girl Scouts when they were younger, it is not a requirement for joining.

“You don’t have to have ever been a Girl Scout and you don’t even have to be female,” Grubbs said. “A lot of the girls are interested because they were Girl Scouts at some point and they want to continue doing service events that help out the Girl Scouts now.”

The Campus Scouts try to do at least one big outreach activity each semester along with several smaller activities amongst themselves each semester as well.

One of the main outreach activities that they are planning for the spring semester is called Taking the Road Less Traveled.

“It’s a program that is put on by the Women in Science and Engineering and it has been going on for almost 25 or 26 years,” said Jana Stenbeck, advisor for the Campus Scouts. “It’s an opportunity for girls in middle school and high school to come to Iowa State and be exposed to STEM, or science, technology engineering and mathematics.”

Grubbs says that being a part of Girl Scouts since she was a Daisy has really made her want to stay involved with scouts, and encourage other people to get involved too, even after their high school days.

“I love Girl Scouts, but also I want to get other people interested in it because it’s such a great organization for girls,” Grubbs said. “It gives them an opportunity to do things that maybe they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise and it teaches girls to be independent and that they can do anything they want to do.”