In Black America; Girl Scouts of Central Texas, with Taji Senior

From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio, this is in Black America. There is definitely a concern, both for me personally and professionally, I think nationally African American girls make up about 11% of our membership in here in Central Texas where we serve 46 counties, African American girls make up about 5% of our membership. Now some of that is directly correlated to the fact that we make up less of the population in total and as the membership declines over the years, so does that group. But I think as we focus on trying to round out our membership, I think we need to make a concerted effort into reaching out to that group as well.

Taji Senior, Public Relations Executive with Girl Scouts of Central Texas. The Girl Scouts of America began as an all-white organization in Savannah, Georgia in 1912. Five years later in 1917, the troop introduced its first African American Girl Scouts, probably in the New York area. This positive change led to an integration of more scout troops in 1950, 14 years before the Civil Rights Movement. It forced recreation of a Native American troop followed by a Mexican American Girl Scouts troop. In the late 1930s, the first southern region African American Dixie troop was formed, and the archives of Girl Scouts of America, there are photos of both Black and White Girl Scouts at Camp Indian Run in Philadelphia in 1941. African American women have served in leadership roles with the organization. In 1969, Dr. Dorothy B. Fairby served as the first African American Vice President of Girl Scouts USA.

Then, Texas Native, Dr. Gloria Scott was chosen as their first African American President in 1975. I'm Johnny Ohansson, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. On this week's program, Girl Scouts of America with Todd G. Senior Public Relations Executive with Girl Scouts of Central Texas, In Black America. There are less African American girls, or while we serve such a small percentage, I will say that it is noticeable, and it is something that everyone that I work with is cognizant of, and something that we would like to see change. I think that it is most noticeable, especially for me, working with the marketing team when we're trying to show this image of inclusivity, and it's a struggle, and that is a thing. And also, it's a thing that concern for me, it is concerning to me because I see all the wonderful things that our girls get to do. They go to Costa Rica, they go to South Africa, they participate on robotics teams, they use 3D printers, they get college scholarships, they get all these wonderful opportunities,

and all this help along the way, and gain all this social capital through Girl Scouts and African American girls. I do not see African American girls taking advantage of, and that is a personal and professional concern of mine. Above the Girl Scouts served in Central Texas, 16,886. And the 889 or 5.1% are African Americans, nationally they are more than 1 million, but just over 208,000 are African American girls, and this is a concern with the organization. Founded on March 12, 1912 by Juliet Gordon Daisy, Lowell and Savannah Georgia, GSUSA aims to empower girls and to help teach value such as honesty, fairness, courage, compassion, character, sisterhood, confidence, entrepreneurship, and citizenship, through activities including camping, community service, learning first aid, and earning badges by acquiring practical skills.

Girl Scouts achievement I recognize through rank advancement, and by various special awards such as Girl Scouts Ron Silver and Gold Awards. According to Taji's senior, Girl Scouts compete in national robotic competitions, learn to sail, co-computer programs, and video games, receive scholarship and access to a multitude of opportunities. Without question, Girl Scouts is one of the most American experiences imaginable, and yet so many African American girls never experience it at all. Recently in Black America spoke with Taji's senior, population executive of Girl Scouts of Central Texas. I came to Austin about three years ago as a overnight news producer for the CBS affiliate here, and so that work brought me to Austin, and then once my contract ended, I was looking for a change, and that's how I found Girl Scouts of Central Texas. You mean you love broadcasting to go to Girl Scouts? I did leave broadcasting to Girl Scouts. Tell us about Girl Scouts, how did it get started, and why is it important for particularly

this audience, an abroad audience, to participate in Girl Scouting? Girl Scouts was founded in 1912 by Juliet Gordon-Low, and it has been around, you know, first century plus now. From me, from my perspective, the thing that I've learned in the year and a half that I've been at this particular council is that it is really diverse and well-rounded in its programming, everything from STEM in the arts, and outdoors, and recreation, and scholarships, and college and career readiness, it provides a lot of opportunities for girls at a very reasonable cause of where at just $15 for the entire school year, for girls to participate. And so I think it is a really strong resource that girls can use, not only just for right now, but for when they're looking at college and they're looking at those steps after high school and things like that. Myself being a Cub Scout and going through Boy Scout, what is the age one starts, girls Scouting?

Kindergarten. We're K through 12. And once they've started Girl Scouting, are there different divisions because you've got Cub Scouts for Boys, and then you have Boy Scouts in the different ranks you can obtain in Boy Scouting, are they similar? Absolutely. So we start with Daisy, those are kindergartners, and then they move up to Brownies, juniors, cadets, seniors, and ambassadors. And then within that, there are different award levels, so you can earn your bronze, silver, or your gold, and they are community service projects. The silver award I think is a 60-hour community service project, and the gold award is an 80-hour community service project that requires an element of sustainability, and girls who earn the gold award actually enter the military one rank higher. Really? Yes, sir. How is there a lack of African-American participation in Girl Scouting, particularly here in Austin, but nationally, if there is a concern? There is definitely a concern, both for me personally and professionally, I think nationally African-American girls make up about 11% of our membership in here in Central Texas,

where we serve 46 counties, African-American girls make up about 5% of our membership. Now some of that is directly correlated to the fact that we make up less of the population and total, and as the membership declines over the years, so does that group. But I think as we focus on trying to round out our membership, we need to make a concerted effort and to reaching out to that group as well. How does one become a Girl Scout if a troop is not in their immediate area? There are several different ways to be a Girl Scout. You don't necessarily have to join a troop. You can be an independent Girl Scout, and you can go online and look at the different Girl Scout events. You can do some of the Girl Scout curriculum online. Girls go through what are called journeys, and they can do that online. They can go to camp.

They can travel with Girl Scouts as long as they're a registered member. It's not just you have to be physically able to attend a troop meeting in order to participate. There are a bunch of different ways to participate in Girl Scouts. Who sponsor these troops? A lot of different organizations, their civic organizations, churches, sometimes schools. A lot of our troops are run by individual volunteers. More often times than not mothers who have girls who are interested in Girl Scouts, but we also have a lot of young professionals who sponsor troops as well. You mentioned the membership cost is just $15 a year. Are there other associated costs associated with Girl Scouts? Yes. Girls, by uniforms and sashes and badges and then programs, and because we're a nonprofit, our program fees just cover the cost of running the program. So typically, most programs are about $5 per program around that price point. However, there's financial assistance available in everything.

So even if you need it financial assistance with your uniforms or for your membership or for programs or for travel and things like that, there is financial assistance available. Are there any efforts to broaden the knowledge and availability of Girl Scouts as far as reaching out to fraternities or sororities or other African-American civic organizations such as the links and whatever? Absolutely. I know that we have a relationship with the links here in Austin. We just a few weeks ago had, we have an African-American initiative here in Central Texas and we brought in a lot of community leaders and a lot of religious leaders to talk to them about the importance of Girl Scouts and the lives of African-American girls. And then on a national level, there is an initiative that is happening now to partner with organizations like Delta Sigma Theta and say, listen, you have resources, you have people. We have programming, could we partner with you so you guys can sponsor troops and we can give you the programming and the curriculum and the events and activities and things of

that nature. From your vantage point, what have you seen regarding the lack of African-American participation in Girl Scouts? From my perspective, I don't have an answer as to why there are less African-American girls or why we serve such a small percentage. I will say that it is noticeable and it is something that everyone that I work with this cognizant of and something that we would like to see change. I think that it is most noticeable, especially for me, working with the marketing team when we're trying to show this image of inclusivity and it's a struggle and that is a thing. And also it is a thing that concern for me, it is concerning to me because I see all the wonderful things that our girls get to do. They go to Costa Rica, they go to South Africa, they participate on robotics teams, they use 3D printers, they get college scholarships, they get all these wonderful opportunities and all this help along the way and gain all this social capital through Girl Scouts and

African-American girls. I do not see African-American girls taking advantage of and that is a personal and professional concern of mine. If you're just joining us, I'm John L. Hanson Jr. and you're listening to End Black America from KUT Radio and we're speaking with Taji Senior, Public Relations Executive for Girl Scouts of Central Texas. Taji, when you came to Girl Scouting, did you have a broad knowledge of what they were all about? I did not actually, it took me a little while to get inculcated if you will into the Girl Scout world and cons to absorb all of that knowledge. I think that I had the general consensus view like, oh, they have cookies and that I did not realize how robust and how well-rounded the programming was and how there really is something there that caters to all kinds of girls and there is no sort of nudging or suggesting to any girl of any sort of which direction she should go.

It's all designed so she can kind of figure it out for herself and make decisions and choices for herself as to what she wants to pursue and what she's interested in and how she wants to learn and all of that. Obviously, this is part of you all's outreach efforts. What has been the response from other endeavors that you all have embarked upon? Most of the response that I get is the response that I had once I started working at Girl Scouts was, wow, I didn't know you did, all of those things. A lot of people have kind of discounted Girl Scouts as a state-American tradition. As we know, a lot of times when we think about American traditions, the first thing that pops into our mind is not people of color. For us, it's about being reflective of what America actually looks like and representing what America actually looks like and not just the girls that we serve and also in the ways in which we serve them.

How much time does a girl participate on a weekly basis in Girl Scouts? That is completely up to her. She could be incredibly active in her troop and meet with them and also go to different Girl Scout events throughout the week and work on her community service projects. It could be one hour to 15 hours. It's completely the organization that has been redesigned in recent years to be more adaptable to girls' schedules because we recognize that girls live in the real world and they have sports and they have other commitments and other things that they're interested in outside of Girl Scouts. It's customizable. What about the adult participation? In terms of how much time they get? Well, how much time they give, but also you want African-American girls to be a part of Girl Scouting, but if one doesn't have a daughter, can they participate in Girl Scouting as a volunteer? Absolutely. We have plenty of volunteers who are not parents and we also have male volunteers. That is a thing that people don't realize.

We welcome whomever wants to help without volunteers, this organization simply would not exist, we're a nonprofit and there's no way that we could serve the amount of girls that we do so if it weren't for people like troop leaders stepping up and then people like service unit directors who manage a clump of troops. So yeah, we definitely take people who are not parents. If anyone that was under a rock for like 11 months out of the year, one month out of the year or maybe two, everyone knows about Girl Scouting. Tell us about how cookies came such an integral part of you all fundraising. So that's a really good question. The Girl Scout Cookie Program, actually we are getting ready to celebrate our centennial. The sale first started in 1917 and I do not know who recognized the potential for the Girl Scout Cookie Program, but for us it became a great way not only to fundraise, but to give girls an opportunity to have their first entrepreneurial experiences, because what a lot of people

don't realize is we don't just give girls the cookies and they go out to sell. Girls choose what they want to sell, when they want to sell it, they choose their hours, they choose what they want to do with that money, a certain percentage of it goes to the troop and a certain percentage of it goes to the girl herself to be used within Girl Scouts. So she can use that money to go towards community service projects, she can use that money to travel, she could use that money to a lot of girls actually are incredibly selfish and it's really inspiring to watch, but they use that money to maybe help pay for another girl to go to camp or to help another girl go on a trip and things like that. So they have marketing toolkits and they have business cards and they make their own signs for their stands and all of that and so that is for us what the Girl Scout Cookie Program truly represents. The cookies are delicious, I'm not going to lie, I'm still working off some of those initial months of having unfettered access to the cookies, but yeah that's for us, that's what the

Girl Scout Cookie Program represents and that is why it remains an integral part of what we do. So I assume there is a decent amount of money that is raised during that period, because you gave us an idea for Central Texas? I think last year, I think we raised around 8 million? Cookies. Yeah, 8 million American dollars, I think and I could be wrong on that, I'm not sure, but that money stays in Central Texas, we do not see any of it as a council, what it covers is, I think a dollar of it covers the, for each box covers the cost of production and then it goes to girls and then it goes to programming. So that's the how cookies support us as an organization. And that is for every council, every council, none of that money goes to like staff or anything like that, it all goes back to the girls, either through programming or to individual

girls or to troops and it stays, what's raised here, stays here. And I don't know if you can answer this question, but I have a friend of mine who had daughters that were in Girl Scouting and they had a different batch of cookies. About cookies here in Austin, there's a different batch of cookies, you know, about cookies and dollars for a worth area, there's a different batch of cookies. So I assume each area decides on what cookies that they're going to sell. Yes. So there are two bakers in the U.S. that provide Girl Scout cookies that bake all the cookies. And so depending on where you live, you could get caramel delights in some areas or you could get some of us. We just recently switched bakers. So last year, if you participated in a cookie sale, you maybe, you got some always maybe this, you know, you will be getting caramel delights. There are some, the recipes are nuanced, I would say, and that's the difference.

And so people who really love lemonade and thanks a lot here in Central Texas, they'll be coming back. Are there any new cookies? I think I read something about new cookies coming out this year. But it's true. We do have a new cookie. The smore cookie is coming out as a part of our Centennial celebration. Have you had an opportunity to attend one of the Girl Scout meetings and if you have, what did you observe? I have. I have had the opportunity to spend time with the girls at camp and summer camp or winter camp. Summer camp. I was there and I was there for three days or at overnight camp. And the thing that I really observed about them is that they're just like every other girl. They're excitable. They just want to be out and be free and have fun. The thing that struck me the most though about watching these girls is that the disagreements and the arguments and the things that they get into it over is about leadership is about

who is going to take the lead. They've got literally watched two girls row or canoe in a circle for ten minutes because they wouldn't decide who was going to take them into shore and there's no comments about how they look or who has more money or about ethnicity or it's non-existent. It really is. I recognize and value you in what you add to this situation and they have a lot of fun and they're really selfless and kind and generous. And again, I don't think that that's unique to girls who participate in Girl Scouts, but I do think that the programming in the way that Girl Scouts is structured, it is designed to place a higher emphasis and higher value on those qualities than maybe just other organizations or just if they weren't in Girl Scouts. I was going to ask you that somewhat similar question of how these young ladies do outside

of Girl Scouting as far as what they learn in Girl Scouting transfer to what they do in everyday life at school, at home, with the other peers and aren't part of Girl Scouting. Absolutely. So, I think what Girl Scouting provides in terms of being a supplemental opportunity is that these girls, first of all, a lot of research has shown that girls just tend to do better academically when they're around their female peers because they lose some of that societal pressure to behave differently around boys. So they are in an environment where they are free to just be themselves and that is what is encouraged. There's a strong emphasis on, well, what do you want to do and what do you like? We are a girl-led organization and so a lot of our decisions boil down to what are we hearing from our girls in terms of the things that they want to see and the programming that they want to see and then within that, when they get in the programs, they make decisions

for themselves like how they're going to spend their troop meetings and things like that. So they get a lot of leadership opportunities that other girls may not get and they get a strong bond and sisterhood that other girls outside of Girl Scouts may not get. A lot of these girls go from even though they go to different schools and maybe sometimes live in different neighborhoods, they go from kindergarten all the way to their senior year in high school and they get an opportunity to serve their community as I was saying earlier with the awards program, especially like the Gold Award, which is an 80-hour community service project that requires an element of sustainability in girls who earn the Gold Award actually enter the military one rank higher than all of the cadets. I read something and I don't know if you're familiar with Girl Scouts spaying their presence in 2016 International Consumer Electronics Show. I assume girls are coming up with new apps and what have you. Talk on stuff, absolutely, STEM, we recognize that STEM science, technology, engineering

and math permeates our existence and more and more we are becoming increasingly reliant on technology and so us recognizing that as an organization, we are trying to give our girls a window into that and so here in Central Texas we have two, excuse me, three our girl robotics teams, one in Austin, one in Waco and one in Bryan College Station two of whom competed nationally in the spring and so yeah girls are learning things like robotics and working with 3D printers, we have a heavy emphasis on coding and HTML coding so girls are learning to do that and they are learning to build apps and design their own webpages and all that fun, cool stuff, yeah absolutely and then speaking of cookies last year, here in Central Texas we took part in the digital cookie program which allowed girls to run their own online cookie businesses.

When you look at the opportunities that young ladies have with Girl Scouting, other than the leadership quality, what are some of the other things that excites you about Girl Scouting? For me, having graduated, having gone to college and having had that opportunity, I would say travel and scholarships. We send our girls all over the place, places as closest for Davis which is fairly close to us here in Austin, to Morocco, we send to a group of girls to Europe this summer they went to Italy and France and Switzerland, next summer we are going to send a group of girls to Cyprus which is a Greek island, we are going to Tokyo, girls go all over the place in the trips are relatively affordable and again there is financial aid available in scholarships and they can use the money from the cookie sales to help offset the cost of that. So travel is one of the main things that excites me in scholarship and career in college readiness. We set up what is called an emerging leader series where girls have the opportunity to

meet women professionals in the careers that they think they are already interested in. So if they are interested in media they can go and talk to women journalists and have that experience of asking them questions about what it is like to walk in their shoes and what they had to do to get to where they are at and I personally think that that is invaluable. When you look at where Girl Scouting has come, are there any conversation of where they want to take Girl Scouting in the future? Absolutely, I think that is the undercurrent of everything we do. It is a constant assessment of where we are at now and what are we heading towards. And I think having more inclusion of not only African American girls but Latinas as well and trying to serve that community as well is something that we want to make sure that we have a strong hold and we are not leaving those girls out. And I think we are always looking for more innovative ways to serve our memberships in girls and adults and making the programming more accessible and for parents making it

easier and less cumbersome with paperwork and things like that for them to be involved into plug-in. One here in this program may not have immediate access to more information. Where could one go online to define it out a little bit more information about Girl Scouting? In Central Texas we are at gsctx.org but nationally it's just girlscouts.org or gsngsusa.org. And once they go to their website, what will they find? They will find just broad information about our programming, ways to register, troops in their areas and find out more about the ways that we serve girls. When you look at your participation with girls scouting, what aha moment you experienced? I think the aha moment that I have experienced is that mostly what I was saying before is that Girl Scouts really is a resource and it really is something that I believe that

more people of color should recognize themselves in. Tajis Senior Public Relations Executive with Girl Scouts of Central Texas. If you have questions, comments or suggestions asked your future in Black America programs, email us at jhanssonatkut.org. Also let us know what radio station you heard us over. Remember to like us on Facebook and to follow us on Twitter. Reviews and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. You can hear previous programs online at kut.org. Until we have the opportunity again for Technical Reduces Day but Alvarez, I'm Johnny O. Hanson Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. CD copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America

CDs, KUT Radio, 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard, Austin, Texas, 78712, that's in Black America CDs, KUT Radio, 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard, Austin, Texas, 78712. This has been a production of KUT Radio.