Grassroots Group Rallies To Save Girl Scout Camps

Press release from Save Our Camps GSWISE:

Dec. 14, 2020

Save Our Camps GSWISE is dedicated to ensuring that future Girl Scouts, along with alumni, supporters, families and the surrounding community, have access to the opportunities and resources our camps have to offer. We exist to ensure that Camp Pottawatomie Hills and Camp Winding River remain the beautiful and historic properties they are today.

On October 16, 2020, GSWISE (Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast) announced plans to sell two camp properties, Camp Winding River (a 225-acre facility in Neosho with gentle rolling hills, large grassy areas, wetlands, and access to the Rubicon River) and Camp Pottawatomie Hills (established in 1930, this 120-acre property is on Pleasant Lake in East Troy). There were no communications to camp directors, volunteers, or members-at-large that these camps were under consideration for divestment.

Camp Winding River and Camp Pottawatomie Hills served over 4,000 girls and volunteers from southeastern Wisconsin during the 2019 camp season, in addition to being available for troop and family camping and Council events throughout the school year. Camp is at the heart of the Girl Scout experience. A unique part of the volunteer-run day camp is that the whole family can join. Girl Scouts learn outdoor skills in addition to teamwork, problem-solving, and making new friends. At day camp, girls complete service projects, including making cards for residents in nursing homes, creating blankets for hospice patients, and assembling “birthday kits” for local food pantries. Each girl comes through camp learning how she can follow the Girl Scout Law to “make the world a better place.”

One volunteer (withholding name for fear of reprisal from GSWISE leadership) says, “It's especially maddening to have Council make such a consequential decision with only cursory input from the major foot soldiers (directors). Starting this battle after their decision has already been made, coupled with the fact that nation-wide Girl and Boy Scout Councils have been selling properties makes the struggle so disheartening and uphill. I understand the need to cut costs. In addition to declining membership, the trajectory for camp property maintenance probably looks bleak. However, I wish Council had presented the facts and prospectus to us (directors and members) a few years ago so we could have brainstormed with them THEN to explore potential options. I feel this decision is taking opportunities away from girls and that is counter to our stated mission.”

Save Our Camps GSWISE formed Oct. 22. Within a week, we had more than 115 organizing members, including day camp directors, volunteers, troop leaders, and Girl Scouts and their families. More than 900 people have signed our petition and hundreds are following us on social media. We are a passionate group with skills from architecture to zoology armed with the leadership abilities and work ethic we learned at Girl Scout camp.

Girl Scouts, their families, and volunteers, some of who have been at these camps more than 30 years, are shocked and saddened. Girl Scout Camp Volunteer Del Tann of New Berlin wrote about her granddaughter, “this happy go lucky little girl who loves to go to day camp at Camp Winding River and has been going since she was a Daisy prep and is now in first grade cried when I told her that camp was closing. She asked me why and what would happen to her camp friends and would she see them again. For the first time in her life I had no answers for her. That camp, the friends she made, the experiences she had, the PA’s and PAITS who looked out for her because we are all family is why she is a Girl Scout and continues to be even in COVID. She had her dad make a fire in the backyard and asked to cook camp food. She talks about camp all the time and can’t wait to go back. She has talked to her whole troop about camp. She talks about Ranger Rick like he was her uncle because he was so nice to her. This camp made a difference to this little girl when she needed it most. Please do not take this camp away from her or the many other little girls just like her who need it so!”

Save Our Camps GSWISE is eager to work with the GSWISE Council on ways to save our camp properties for the benefit of all Girl Scouts. Save Our Camps GSWISE invites community members, businesses, and elected officials to visit and follow their facebook page at www.facebook.com/SaveOurCampsG... to see their mission statement, goals, and action plan.

*we are a group of camp directors and volunteers unaffiliated with GSWISE and GSUSA

This press release was produced by Save Our Camps GSWISE. The views expressed here are the author's own.