MAGS News and Photos
updated April 30, 2010
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Scouts help their partner as they experience what it might be like to be visually impaired or to use a wheelchair.

What if You Couldn't?  added April 30, 2010

Thanks to Slippery Rock University's Adapted Physical Activity Club members Katy, Bethany, Bristol, Lauren and Sarah, thirteen Mercer Area Girl Scouts were able to experience what it might be like to do everyday activities, such as tie their shoes, write their name, get themselves dressed, and shop with an intellectual or physical disability.  At this program, the Scouts also helped a partner as they navigated stairs while being blindfolded, and a drinking fountain, ramp, and doorway while using a wheelchair.  Finally, the Scouts were able to try out some of the specialized wheelchairs used by disabled athletes, and the court and ball used in Goalball.  Through this program, the girls completed the requirements for the "What if I Couldn't Badge" from the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta and, more importantly, gained an appreciation for what it might be like "if they couldn't".  Thanks again to the APA Club for organizing this program for the girls!

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Bridging Activities  added April 23, 2010

It's that time of year once again!  On May 2nd, many of the Girl Scouts in Mercer will be bridging - moving up - to their next level of Scouting.  In preparation for this, several troops have attended programs to earn a badge for their new level of Girl Scouts.  For example, the 1st grade Daisies attended the Brownie Stamp Collecting Program to earn their first Try-It, the 3rd grade Brownies attended the Junior Stamp Collecting Program to earn their first Junior Badge and earlier this week, the 5th graders in Junior Troop 834 earned their first Interest Project by attending a program at Juliette's Closet, GSWPA's thrift shop that is located in Beaver, PA.  Eleven Mercer Scouts attended this program, earning the "Your Own Business" IP.  The girls' favorite parts of the program were setting up the shop window displays, coming up with their own business ideas, and making posters displaying what shopping and stores might be like in the future.  Thank you to Michele Gurkweitz, Program Manager from GSWPA, for a great program for the girls, to Cheryl for setting the program up, and to Cheryl, Linda and Kathy for driving the scouts!



Scouts and leaders in front of Juliette's Closet Thrift Shop and getting started on their window diplays.

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Scouts learn about a new hobby - Stamp Collecting!  added April 19, 2010

Tuesday, April 13 found over 45 Girl Scouts learning about the hobby of stamp collecting at two different programs presented by Janet Houser, the American Philatelic Society's Youth Coordinator.  Brownies completed the Hobbies Try-It while Junior Girl Scouts earned the Collecting Hobbies Badge as they learned about the different kinds of stamps to collect, storage of stamp collections, and got a chance to start building their collections.  The Mercer Area Girl Scouts thank Mrs. Houser for coming to Mercer to work with our Scouts! 


 
Scouts looking through stamps to add to their collections at the Junior Girl Scout Stamp Collecting Program

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Girl Scouts from Grove City, Lakeview and Mercer "Plant the Seeds of Friendship"  added April 19, 2010.  Some information provided by Gail Habbyshaw of the Record Argus.

On Friday, April 9th, on the eve of the 100th day of the 100th year since the first Girl Guide Troops were established in several foreign countries, over 100 Girl Scouts and their leaders from Grove City, Lakeview and Mercer gather at Camp Elliott in Volant to "Plant the Seeds of Friendship".  The activities at the event included a canned food drive, sing-along, crafts, games, stories and a dance party featuring dance music from the countries where Girl Guides were founded in 1910: Canada, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

 

Attendees received the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts 2010 centenary patch. There will also be special WAGGSS centenary patches issued for 2011 and 2012, when the themes of the Centenary Celebration will be Grow and Share, respectively.  The organizers of this year's event, Tayna Miller from Lakeview, Jennifer McCommon from Grove City and Kathy Shaffer from Mercer look forward to next year's event, which will focus on growing the Girl Scout membership in these areas by Girl Scouts and their friends enjoying a fun day at Girl Scout camp.  The 2011 event will focus on activities from Australia, Bangladesh (then part of India), India, Ireland, Netherlands, and Pakistan (then part of India).  

 

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Annual Thinking Day Event Held added Feb. 23, 2010

Twenty five scouts attended our annual Thinking Day event on Sunday, Feb. 21st.  The girls learned about Mexico, Haiti and South Africa as they visited several stations, going home with a Haiti SWAP and a South African necklace.  Troop 30202 won the pizza party, donating the most pennies for the reliefefforts in Haiti.  Two bins full of food were also collected at the event for the Sharing Shed. The event ended with everyone sampling the food that Troop 30609 had made from several different countries - the Philippines, Germany, Haiti, South Africa and Kuwiat.  Thank you to Chris for organizing this event again this year!  View more photos here.

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Scouts Enjoy a Winter Day in Erie, PA! added Feb. 15, 2010

Troops 30609 and 30040 had a great time in Erie on Friday, Feb. 12! The girls learned how to cross country ski and then hit the trails at Asbury Woods Nature Center with Steve Wasiesky, the center's Environmental Education Coordinator. After skiing the girls completed a service project by exchanging the old ski poles that were on the racks for the new ones that Asbury Woods recently purchased with a grant from Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield.  From Asbury Woods, the girls headed to the Soldiers and Sailors Home on Erie's east side, where they handed out some of the 150 Valentines that all of the Girl Scout Troops from Mercer hand-made for the residents over the past few weeks. Finally, the girls enjoyed dinner at Smuggler's Wharf on Erie's icy bayfront where the best part was sharing dessert!

YouTube video of the girls Cross Country Skiing.  Note:  You will be redirected to the YouTube site.

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GSUSA National Board Ratifies Policy to Allow Girl Scouts to Raise Funds for Haitian Relief Efforts  added Jan 22, '10

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Scouts Participate in Survival Skills Training

The Mercer Area Girl and Boy Scouts teamed up with US Army MSG David Bannerman and his cadre of John Carroll University ROTC cadets for the second in a series of Survival Skills Training Workshops at Girl Scout Camp Elliott.  The January 16 training focused on Winter Survival.  The phrase of the day, "there's no style points for dressing in the cold...".  More photos from the event can be viewed on-line.

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Troop sends homemade cookies to Soldier stationed in Iraq.   added December 7, 2009
Girl Scouts from Troop Cadette Troop 30609 and some of their Girl, Cub and Boy Scout siblings spent an afternoon over the Thanksgiving break from school baking cookies to send to Iraq.  The scouts made almost 12 pounds of homemade treats which are now on their way to 1LT Sarah Weber, who is currently stationed in Iraq, and who the Mercer Area Girl Scouts have been supporting since she was deployed in early 2009.  With the Girl Scout cookie sale starting soon, 1LT Weber is sure to have even more cookies headed her way in the coming months!

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News:  added November 9, 2009

Congratulations to Cadette Girl Scout Kaitlin A. Conner of Troop 30834 who placed 1st in the VFW's Patriot Pen Contest at Mercer Elementary School.

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Girl Scouts Get Busy!  submitted by Maureen Conner, co-Service Area Manager  added October 30, 2009

Photos:  Removing phragmites at Presque Isle State Park, Small Craft Boater Safety Course, and at the "Earn the Water Drop Patch" program at Allegheny College.

This scouting year has started out with a variety of activities for scouts of each age level.  In the summer, the Scouts attended an Invasive Species Program at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center and then helped out the DCNR by removing some pesky phragmites from the lagoon on Presque Isle.  Scouts marched in the Mercer Victorian Day parade and learned what it was like to be a young lady in the 1800's.  The PA Fish and Boat Commission teamed up twice with us- once to certify us in small craft boater safety and to also make us junior anglers.  Scouts handed out programs at every Friday night band concert in the Mercer Square and of course there was Boot Camp in August.  If you haven't already seen the photos or video, check out the website at www.mercergs.org/BootCamp.html   Congratulations to Troop 30040 for completing their Silver Award Project- a Teddy Bear picnic to recruit new little girls to Scouting.  It worked- we have a huge batch of new Daisy Scouts!  Thank you to Chris Heffron who is leading both the Daisy and Brownie Troops- feel free to offer her assistance.   This fall the Scouts attended an ecology and water conservation program at Allegheny College, passed out theater programs at the Slippery Rock University Performing Arts Series and earned their photography badge and interest project award with the help of some former Girl Scouts they met while on the Slippery Rock campus- thank you Abby, Heather and Nikki.      We have received word from US Army 1LT Sarah Weber that all 25 care packages from Boot Camp have arrived at their base in Iraq and were greatly appreciated.  All troops are now preparing their next batch of Christmas packages to let Sarah and her fellow soldiers know they are appreciated and not forgotten.    Finally, all of the Mercer Area Girl Scouts (MAGS) troops learned a few new tricks about outdoor cooking.  We are not sure if we should be proud or scared, but the whole Brownie troop had their fires going by the second match!  Thank you to Troop 30040 and leader Viki for performing a flag retirement ceremony.  Thank you also to Boy Scout Troop 83 for letting us use their camp for the program.

Photos:  Troop 30040 leading a Flag retirement ceremony at the Outdoor Cooking Program, and Scouts who attended the Photography Program with the presenters from SRU.

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Happy Earth Day!
Girl Scouts from several of our Troops attended the Earth Day Program at Munnell Run Farm on Saturday, April 18 where they helped plant trees and learned about alternative energy. 

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Twenty Four Hour Girl Scout Power!
Cadette Troop 30609 with the cakes that they decorated on April 18 as part of the Sugar Artist Interest Project.  View a Smilebox Slideshow of Troop 30609's 24 hour adventure!

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Photos from Thinking Day: Candle-lit Thinking Day Ceremony, Buckets of pennies, Scouts playing a game from Greece.  The pennies will be donated to the Juliette Low World Friendship Fund. 

Congrats to Julia from Troop 40 whose guess of $250 for the pennies that were collected at Thinking Day was closest to the $237.07 that was collected!    

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Send-off for LT Sarah
Some of the Mercer Area Girl Scouts and Leaders spent a Friday evening with LT Sarah Weber of the US Army and her daughter Paige.  Sarah has been a great supporter of Girl Scouts, spending time at both Trefoil Trails Day Camp and GSWPA Boot Camp this past summer.  Sarah will be deployed next month to Iraq and several of the the Mercer Area Girl Scout Troops have donated all of their Gift of Caring Girl Scout cookies to her Army Reserve Unit from Greensburg, PA.  By spending some time with Sarah and listening to her talk about her experiences in the Army, the scouts and leaders were able to get to know her better and learn about what she will be doing while she is deployed.  By talking to Paige, they also learned what it is like getting ready to have a parent deployed.  The Girl Scouts will continue to support Sarah and her fellow soldiers this summer by collecting items for care packages from the participants at this year's GSWPA Boot Camp.

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Tech Squad
Junior Troop 30834 learned first hand how to build simple machines, including making their own circuit board games from a NASA trained female engineer. This program was part of the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) movement to encourage girls to enter the technology fields  They also built their own balloon cars, an even better paper clip, and learned how a clock radio worked by taking it apart.  Did you know that every female astronaut was also a Girl Scout?

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Cadettes Help at local University Event
Cadette Troops 30040 and 30609 from Mercer spent a Friday evening ushering at The Vanaver Caravan's Pastures of Plenty at Slippery Rock University.  This event was part of University's 2008-2009 Performing Arts Series.  After the production the girls had their picture taken with some of the performers.  The Scouts will return to the University in May to usher for the family show “If You Give a Pig a Pancake and Other Story Books.

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Pajama Party hosted by Brownie Troop 30094
A big thank you to everyone who attended the Pajama Party on Friday, January 23, and to our special guests - Mrs. Jewell, Mrs. Langdon, and Mrs. Sigmund - for making the event even more fun!  The 71 pajama-clad scouts in attendance had a great time playing the Pajama Pants Pop game, dancing to the tunes of DJ Lindsey, making crafts, and listening to some bedtime stories.  Most importantly, through the donations received at this event, 99 new books and 57 pairs of new pajamas were collected for the Children's Aid Society of Mercer County.  Thank you to everyone for their donations and for their help in making this event such a big success!


Mrs. Jewell from the Mercer Area Library sharing a bedtime story with the Girl Scouts.

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Read about some of our fall activities  updated Oct. 24, 2008

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Photos from some of our fun summer and fall activities!

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