Girl Scouts Kicks Off 100th Anniversary Celebration
Women and girls from throughout the Hudson Valley region gathered at Dutchess County Stadium in Wappingers Falls on Saturday. They came from White Plains to Middletown, in all shapes, sizes, color and ages. They were from all walks of life but they all had one thing in common—they were Girl Scouts.
The Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson Council, which has its headquarters in Pleasantville, held a 100th Anniversary Kick Off event to jump start the year-long of activities planned to honor the birth of Girl Scouts a century ago. The Heart of the Hudson represents girls in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Dutchess, Sullivan, Ulster and Orange counties.
More than 4,000 people attended the sold-out event.
Kacey Morabito Green, the co-host of the “Mike and Kacey in the Morning” radio show on WHUD, emceed the event. Morabito Green, a former girl scout, said that see felt honored to be part of such an event. “I remember putting on my uniform and as you put on the vest and the pins,” said Morabito Green, a Cold Spring resident. “You knew you were part of something big.”
The current scouts were active participants in the day, some dressed in vintage uniforms, others got to walk around the field as part of the opening parade of service unit banners, but the thing that was able to give all of the girls a united sense of identity was the sing-along.
They knew the songs and they knew the corresponding body movements. Together they became a unit. Several guests led the sing-along at different times throughout the event. The Dotted Half Notes, a chorus made up of Girl Scouts from the Heart of the Hudson area that practices in Mahopac, led quite a few songs for their peers.
Patricia Shih, an award-winning singer-songwriter, recording artist, author and former television personality, is also a past scout as well as a former leader and volunteered to perform for the crowd.
Shih, a resident of Huntington, on Long Island, understands the positive influence Girl Scouts has on the lives of girls and has performed for Girl Scout’s national anniversary sing-along-events in 1997, 2002 and 2007.
“I loved being a Girl Scout,” said Shih. “My favorite part of being a Girl Scout was going door-to-door selling Girl Scout cookies; back then that was how we would sell them. We would schlep the cookies around the neighborhood and sell them for 50 cents a box.”
Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson CEO Pam Anderson agreed. “I loved selling cookies,” Anderson said. “I thought I was a business woman and that was how I learned to use my confidence was by selling cookies.”
“This is girl power at work,” said Congresswoman Nan Hayworth, who spoke at the event. “The Girl Scouts are actively making a difference in their communities. They are learning great things. They are learning how to become leaders. They are an asset to all of us and I take inspiration by what they do.”
Girl Scouts USA currently has 3.2 million members and over 50 million American women have been Girl Scouts throughout the years, according to Anderson. The Heart of the Hudson council serves over 31,000 girls and has over 15,000 adult volunteers.
Heart of the Hudson will host a day-long event at the Westchester County Center in May that will with the Gold Award recognitions. In June, Girls Scouts will hold a celebration in Washington D.C.
Registration is ongoing and Anderson encourages girls in between the ages of 5 and 17 to join. For more information, visit girlscoutshh.org.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.