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Beyond The Cookie Sales: CNY Girl Scouts Earn ‘Financing Your Dream’ Badge Beyond The Cookie Sales: Girl Scouts Earn 'Financing Your Dream' Badge

By Racquel Stephen

GIRL SCOUTS: On my honor I will try

REPORTER: Girl Scout Troop 10061 meets at Jamesville-Dewitt High School every Thursday night. It’s an hour of learning whatever topic the girls decide. Tonight…the topic is finance with troop leader, Kathleen Hougland.

KATHLEEN HOUGLAND: That means you can afford a house thats $45 thousand dollars. I would suggest not looking in Manlius”…)

REPORTER: More specifically how to finance their dream lifestyle.

HOUGLAND: So they had to figure out how much money they could afford for a mortgage or for rent based upon the salary they had picked. For the job they had picked. With the education that they had. All of that.”)
REPORTER: Sometimes that means facing harsh realities.

HOUGLAND: You have a career that you love. You want to be a baker. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Like, you might not be able to have the biggest house.

REPORTER: Definitely a situation most of us can relate to. No coincidence that this is being taught at the most important financial time of a girl scout’s year.

HOUGLAND: We try to have it kinda overlap a little bit. When we are talking about money and cookies and how we earn money, we try to put it into a real life example at the same time. So they can look at it, and to ‘In the future when I have a job, and I graduated from college, or i went to trade school, this is the type of job I might have.’ So we are trying to apply that lesson while they’re actually in the practice of managing their own business…because that’s what the Girl Scout cookie sale is intended to teach them…that they’re all little entrepreneurs going out, and selling their cookies.”

REPORTER: This vest that I’m wearing is probably the most important part of the Girl Scout uniform. It’s where they put all the badges that they earn. Right here. Up next. The Financing your dream badge.

HOUGLAND: It depends on how long it takes them to complete it. Tonight we only got through one step, and every badge has five.”)

REPORTER: Hougland says, “The girls have already completed three of those five steps.” Only two more before the badge is complete. How does it feel ladies?

GIRL SCOUTS: Yaay Girl Scouts

REPORTER: Racquel Stephen…, N-C-C News.

DEWITT, N.Y. (NCC News) – The Girl Scouts of NYPENN Pathways, Troop 10061, meet at Jamesville-Dewitt High School every Thursday night to learn about a topic of their choice.  These hour-long sessions are steps towards attaining scout reward badges.

On Thursday, January 30th, the subject was ‘finance’, with troop leader Kathleen Hougland.  Hougland, who has been a troop leader for over ten years, says the girls, who range from 6th to 8th graders, learned how to achieve a financial situation that would foster their dream lifestyle.

“They had to figure out how much money they could afford for a mortgage, or for rent, based upon the salary they had picked, for the job they had picked, with the education that they had.  All of that,” said Hougland.

She also added that there was no coincidence this topic occured during the most important financial time of a girl scout’s year; or what we know as “cookie season”.

“We try to have it kind of overlap a little bit…because that’s what the Girl Scout cookie sale is intended to teach them…that they’re all little entrepreneurs going out and selling their cookies.”

Girl Scout cookie sales help fund numerous troop events and projects.  The girls also learn how to budget their earnings and make smart and logical investments.   Thursday night was only the second step of a five step process before the “Financing Your Dream” badge is added to the scout’s vest.

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