Yes, it can be done, with a Girl Scout patch inspired by Dolores Huerta

Editor’s note: This story originally was published April 24, 2008.

¡Si se puede!

The United Farm Workers of America rallying cry, which means “Yes, it can be done,” has found a new audience: Girl Scouts.

The phrase is embroidered on the Dolores Huerta Interest Project patch, which also bears an image of the UFW co-founder.

Huerta was in Modesto on Friday evening as the patch was awarded to the first 100 girls who earned it in a pilot program by the Girl Scouts Heart of Central California council. The patch artwork was unveiled by renowned Latina artist Barbara Carrasco of Culver City.

The experience — having a patch created in her name, being awarded Girl Scout lifetime membership and being the guest of honor at a traditional Mexican banquet — “was beyond anything I could have dreamed or imagined,” said Stockton-raised Huerta, who was a Girl Scout from age 8 to 18.

The patch curriculum was written by Debbie Miller, the council’s Latino initiative director. The goal is to help girls develop leadership skills and inspire them to do community service. Scouts had to learn about Huerta’s life and work, as well as issues related to farmworkers, women and-or immigrants.

“Older girls went through the process of what it takes to write a bill,” said Rebecca Ortega-Harrington, membership team manager for the council’s southern region.

The Scouts researched whatever topic they chose for their mock bill, learned about getting a sponsoring legislator, doing rewrites and other steps. To meet other requirements, girls conducted personal interviews with family — typically grandparents who worked in the fields — to gain perspective on the farmworker and immigrant experience.

“ ‘Si se puede, yes, we can do it,’ is a really positive message,” Huerta said of the phrase she and fellow UFW co-founder César Chávez coined in 1972. “The message I shared with the girls and their parents is that we need women in leadership. We’re supposedly the most progressive nation in the world, but we’re 68th in terms of women in government office.”

Women hold fewer than 17 percent of the seats in Congress, while Norway’s national assembly, for example, is nearly 40 percent women, Huerta said.

Of the women in Congress, though, 60 percent were Girl Scouts, she pointed out. “The whole idea of Girl Scouts is to teach confidence and leadership.”

Girls thrilled by meeting

For Friday’s event, Scouts decorated the banquet room at the council’s Modesto office with posters made as part of the patch curriculum. Each troop present also made scrapbook pages that were put into a book for Huerta. Meeting the subject of their studies was a thrill for the girls.

“I learned so much about her devotion to serving others, then to get to meet her and shake her hand was exciting,” said Kathy Arvizo of Troop 3873 in Ceres. “It felt like I was a part of history.”

“We studied the difficulties Dolores had as a woman,” said Megan Stanke of Troop 3019 in Merced. “She proves that no matter who you are or where you come from, you can make a difference.”

Daeja Warner of Modesto Troop 8074 added, “Learning about her work will help me grow up to be a better person. ... I want to stand up for what is right, always, like Dolores.”

The Heart of Central California council includes about 30,000 girls in 18 counties from Merced to Sacramento, including Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Calaveras, Tuolumne and Mariposa.

The Dolores Huerta Interest Project Patch curriculum is aimed at girls in grades six through 12, but there’s been great interest from younger Scouts, so Miller is revising it, Ortega-Harrington said.

And for the indefinite future, the patch will be available to other councils’ Scouts only through Heart of Central California, she said.

“We want to retain autonomy on the patch,” Ortega- Harrington said, so the curriculum likely will be made available online and “other councils can order patches from us.”

Huerta said she thinks it’s great that the council is reaching out to young Latinas and has been so successful in getting Latino women to serve as leaders.

“Scouting is exposing these girls to opportunities they maybe never would have had, like camps and merit badges -- I don’t know if they call them merit badges anymore. ... It develops leadership skills and gives the girls confidence to lead in this world.”

This story was originally published April 24, 2008 at 2:32 AM.