Girl Scouts push to include more Latinos

Cecilia Sanchez never imagined she could lead a Girl Scout troop.

After all, Girl Scouts aren't common in her native Mexico — most troops there are in large cities and thought to be only for the well-to-do.

Plus, wouldn't she have to speak English? Sanchez, a farmworker who lives in Ceres, speaks only Spanish.

Still, when her daughter came home from school with a note that said the Girl Scouts were looking for mothers to lead troops, Sanchez volunteered. She's now one of some 40 Spanish-speaking mothers who head Girl Scout troops in the region.

"At first, I was nervous," Sanchez said in Spanish. "It's a big responsibility. But my daughter begged me to do it."

The troops — there are 16 in Stanislaus, Merced and San Joaquin counties — conduct meetings in Spanish. Sure, they sell cookies and make crafts. But they also learn about Latino culture through art, music, dance and the like. They perform community service and earn patches on educational topics such as asthma and H1N1 flu prevention.

It's part of what's called the Hispanic-Latino Initiative, a project launched three years ago by the local Girl Scout council, Girl Scouts Heart of Central California.

The idea, explained Girl Scout officials, is to attract more Spanish-speaking girls and adult volunteers.

The benefits: Girls get to see their Spanish-speaking moms in leadership positions and can better visualize themselves heading everything from Girl Scout troops to companies in the future.

"They're learning you can do anything if you try," Sanchez said.

Starting in 2004

The first Spanish-speaking Girl Scout troops here started in 2004 at the Oak Valley Family Support Network in Oakdale. The organization ran a support group in Spanish for mothers of toddlers, and saw a Girl Scout troop as another way to serve the area's Spanish-speaking families.

Soon, one troop became two, each with seven or eight girls and two Spanish-speaking leaders. The effort was so successful that, in 2007, the Girl Scout council officially launched its initiative, focused on recruiting and supporting Spanish-speaking leaders.

The council created two positions for Spanish- speaking staff to run the program. The director, Debbie Miller, developed a new patch — the Dolores Huerta Interest Project — for which girls learn about issues related to farmworkers, women and immigrants.

The staff also hands out Spanish-language Girl Scout materials — everything from handbooks to notes home to parents.

This makes sense, Miller said, because the area's Latino population is substantial. In 2008, nearly 40 percent of Stanislaus County residents were Latino, according to Census Bureau figures.

"Forty years from now, an even bigger percentage of girls will be Hispanic," she said. "We're expanding the opportunities for more girls to become Girl Scouts."

On the 'cutting edge'

Miller believes the Heart of Central California council is on the "cutting edge" nationwide with its Hispanic-Latino Initiative. At a Girl Scout conference a few years ago, she could find no other councils doing such a program. In the years since, she's read reports on a few efforts to engage the Latino community, but those have been solely through paid Girl Scout staff, not recruiting volunteer adult troop leaders.

"There was no model for this, we created one," she said. "We created this community-organizing model, which involved a lot of going to people's homes, creating trust, doing training and one-on-one mentoring."