Girl Scouts
CIHA and Girl Scouts Provide Field Trips for Resident Girls
This summer Cook Inlet Housing (CIHA), Girl Scouts and Kids' Café teamed up to provide three fun-filled field trips for the young girls at Strawberry Village Cottages and Brighton Park Apartments. CIHA staff thought the field trips would be a great way to introduce the girls living at Strawberry Village Cottages (SVC) and Brighton Park (BP) to the benefits of Girl Scouts – an organization dedicated to building young peoples' character and self-esteem.
CIHA's resident services coordinator, Liberty Kyser, worked with Suzy Hambach of Girls Scouts to develop three trips that would provide the girls with an opportunity to get out of town, explore nature, and expand their world view. Kids' Café provided sack lunches for each trip, CIHA provided transportation, Girl Scouts paid for all additional expenses, and a great partnership of shared missions was born.
Four girls and one mother from SVC and one girl from BP attended the first Girl Scout field trip to the Eagle River Nature Center on a sunny June day. The girls thoroughly enjoyed learning the names of plants along the trail and catching butterflies and other interesting winged creatures.
Word of how much fun the group had quickly spread. Twelve girls from SVC and two girls from BP participated in the field trip to the Portage Glacier Visitor Center and Big Game Alaska in early July. The group was greeted by gray skies and rain, but that didn't dampen the girls' curiosity. They explored all the center had to offer including a movie about glaciers and glasses that enabled them to see the world from an animal's point of view. They were having so much fun visiting the animals and making tracks at Big Game Alaska they didn't want to leave.
For the final Girl Scout field trip, eleven girls and one mom from SVC and three girls from BP enjoyed a sunny afternoon in late July at Singing Hills Girl Scout Camp. The girls played in the water, explored the forest and made a camp fire. Several of the girls had never eaten s'mores before and had been looking forward to it all summer. No one was disappointed.
"The look of joy on their faces as they bit into the sweet sticky mess they made is something I will not soon forget, and the sound of their squeals as they ran from a spider on the wall of the out house still makes me laugh," said Kyser. "The sense of pride they possessed as they announced the name of a plant, captured a fast moving bug, navigated a trail, or discovered something new in themselves and the world around them is something I hope they will carry with them forever. I know I will."
"I am proud of what we (CIHA, Girl Scouts, Kids' Café and the girls) accomplished this summer," Kyser continued. "I truly felt CIHA's mission to provide quality housing that promotes healthy communities, economic development, independence and partnering come alive!"