Volunteer Spotlight: Amy Gary
We thank ALL the volunteers and parents who have stepped up to support our go-getters during this year’s cookie booth season. We’ve had some awesome booths to showcase our Girl Scout Cookies AND our program! Because of you, girls are gaining important skills to refine their leadership abilities. The Girl Scout Cookie Program is a great way to help girls of all ages to earn money towards all of their fun Girl Scout adventures…and it's a hands-on, leadership and entrepreneurial opportunity which teaches girls the five skills needed in both life and business.
Amy Gary, service unit coordinator for Town Shores Service Unit, reorganized her schedule when she received a SOS call. Volunteers and girls were needed to cover a cookie booth at Latitude Climbing and Fitness in Virginia Beach. The business, owned by Girl Scout alum Marisa Beck, is a supportive GSCCC program partner with locations in Norfolk and Virginia Beach. While it was a full-day commitment, Amy found a way to put it into her busy schedule and recruit girls and parents to help that included her daughter Amber and co-leader’s daughter, Shyann—both regularly sell 1,000 boxes plus during past seasons and are hitting their target again this year.
“On Thursday afternoon, I was contacted asking if I could work the 1-4 shift at Latitude, as they had asked through council to have a booth inside for their big event,” Amy said. “I shuffled my folks around, cancelled booths and said ok. On Friday, I was asked to also cover the 10-1 shift. I cancelled more booths and got it all covered for this 'high visibility' booth for a council partner. Latitude was having a Bouldering Competition attended by hundreds of people that came from many places out of state.”
While the goal was to sell cookies, Amy, a seasoned recruiter, also treated the cookie booth as a recruitment opportunity. Amy was excited to report, “There were a lot of families there. We passed out the regular council items that we are given, but also added some of our own things. We taught booth visitors to tie square knots, with left over items from a Camp Skills Day that we ran, and we created pony bead necklaces that represented the Girl Scout Promise and Law. We also taught fire safety, helped kids make bracelets and keychains from paracord, and had supplies for them to make friendship bracelets.”
The Friday shift which was to be three hours turned out to be more than six hours, but Amy said it was worth the time and that the girls had a lot of fun. In addition to selling cookies and doing hands-on activities with guests, the girls were eager to share their Girl Scout stories and to showcase their current Teddy Bear community service project. Town Shores, in conjunction with Marian Mano, is doing a teddy bear collection and donating the cuddly ambassadors to first responders who help children.
“It was a very long day, but our girls were happy to do it,” Amy said. “ They got to sell some cookies, make some crafts, fall in love with bouldering and climbing, work on some service projects, talk about how awesome Girl Scouts is, and meet some really wonderful people!
