November 19, 2025 Breakfast Meeting Notes
Alicia won the 50/50.
Greg won the chance to draw for the ace of spades but drew the 4 instead. The game continues.
Rotary weekly highlights: We received a thank-you from the Pemi Youth Center for our $1000 contribution to their winter coat drive.
Rotary minute: Joyce Ives was the only member of our club to serve as president for two consecutive years. She is also the first woman member and the first woman president. Mike Carrier and Skip van Sickle each served for two years but not consecutively.
Our speaker today is Kelli Brown from the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains. She comes to us via Zoom from her home in Chelmsford, MA; her son recently graduated form PSU. She is the director of fund development for the organization.
The GSGWM is one of 112 councils chartered by Girl Scouts USA. They are the world’s only organization dedicated solely to girls. The local district services close to 8000 Girl Scouts in almost 600 troops. The Girl Scouts was founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912. The organization’s mission is to build girls of courage, character, and confidence, who want to create a better world.
The volunteer program serves children from kindergarten through grade 12. They participate in a wide variety of activities: STEM, the outdoors, life skills, and enterpreneurship. Girls can attend day or weekend camps, take part in virtual programming, and learn to be entrepreneurs by selling cookies. The annual cookie sale is the world’s largest girl-led entrepreneurial program. We have over 5500 Scouts in New Hampshire, 300 in Grafton County, with 24 in the town of Plymouth. One in every two adult women (and 60% of the women in Congress) was a Girl Scout. 1/3 of girls say they would not have been able to do the outdoor activities were it not for the opportunities provided by the Girl Scouts.
The girl scouts work to help in the critical areas in which girls need direction, such as developing a strong sense of self, seeking challenges, forming and maintaining healthy relationships, and problem solving. All of this costs money, and the council does not want finances to limit a girl’s ability to participate in outings. So fundraising is critical, and Kelli is in charge of this.
Kelli does fund development by trying to sustain and grow resources by building relationships with those who care about Girl Scout’s relevance. They have a donor base that helps provide for girls who can’t afford the activities. She develops relationships with donors, civic organizations, and corporate partners. They send out several fundraising appeals each year, both with companies and individuals. They also have the Juliette Gordon Low society, for planned giving as part of estate planning.
The organization has many activities for girls. For example, they hold an expo at NH Sportsplex in Bedford (our 1000 attendees this year), and cookie rallies in January to get girls ready for cookie season. They have 5 camps across NH and Vermont that serve the 8000 Girl Scouts in that area. Financial assistance is provided for those who cannot afford to go to camp on their own; they feel that scouting should have an adventure for every girl who wants one. Many of these girls and young women get to have new experiences that they would never be able to have without the support of the Girl Scouts. Attendees of camps must be registered as Girl Scouts; even if they aren’t members of a troop, they can go (but they hope that they will join). Individual Registered Girls are solo members without a troop.
The GSGWM have an annual Gift of Caring, which is unique to their council. The program allows people to send a gift to military members, first responders, veterans, and other essential workers. During COVID they expanded the program to more workers. They are supporting food banks (92,000 boxes of cookies were shared with food banks, police and fire stations, and the US military in 2025.)
Community service is a vital part of the Girl Scout mission Girls participate in short and long term community projects, individually and in groups. The Young Women of Distinction award celebrates the young girls who have won gold, silver, and bronze awards. Gold award winners put in at least 80 hours individually on a project, and the project must be sustainable. The Silver and Bronze awards can be done individually or as part of a group, with Silver projects representing 50 hours of work and Bronze, 20 hours. In 2025 they had 13 Gold Award recipients, 29 alive, and 89 bronze.
The GSGWM always have mentorship opportunities; clubs can come and clean up their camps, for example. It is harder to get volunteers these days. They do have outreach troops, which are nontraditional and led by paid staff to compensate for the loss of volunteers.
Hometown Holiday Celebration: Bill reports that things are moving along well. They have 12-15 floats signed up. Sign up online to volunteer on the day of the parade if you haven’t already. We have the bows for decorating; we need a check from Phil to pay for them. We have 15 people signed up to do decorating the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Board meeting will be Friday.
Announcements: The transition grant committee will be meeting tonight at 5:30. Speakers will start after Christmas break and will focus on careers in the Plymouth area along with the trades. They are working on a flier to advertise the program so as to find more speakers for the slots on Tuesdays from 10:20-11. Cari announced that she is giving a charitable giving seminar on December 4 at her office (to make sure that you get the best benefits of charitable giving). Knights of Columbus dinner and auction will be this Saturday at St Matthews parish hall starting at 4:45. $10 per plate of spaghetti. Come and help the Knights raise money for their charitable activities.
Erica noted that there will be a Turkey Trot at the Owl’s Nest on November 27. Check in will be from 7:30-8:30 and 24 Lakeside Drive in Thornton. Pick up your bib at the Dam Brewhouse on November 26 from 4-7 pm. For more information or to register, go to dambrewhouse.com.
Sharon announced that yesterday was Bill’s birthday. The club sang a hearty “Happy Birthday to You” in his honor.
Happy dollars were shared by Denise, Sharon, Erica, Steve, Lora, Tony, and Cari.
Respectfully submitted,
Lora Miller, secretary