Girl Scouts cooking up fun, friendship
Jenn Brookens — Staff WriterArticle Photos
FAIRMONT - This year, as outdoor chefs, area Girl Scouts learned eight different ways to cook. Not to mention first aid, recycling, outdoor training ... and water fights!
It's all part of the annual tradition of the three-day Girl Scout camp held at Cedar Creek Park in Fairmont.
"It's fun watching them explore," said Nicki Kueker, a Girl Scout leader. "They don't mind that they're getting dirty. And you see the older girls helping the younger girls, and they are absorbing all that information."
This year, it was only the younger girls (those entering first through third grades) at the camp because another camp was going on for some of the older Scouts.
"We have 69 girls here, and they're not just from Fairmont," said April Teskey, another Girl Scout leader. "We have girls from Granada-Huntley-East Chain, Truman and Martin County West, and we also have some troops from Ceylon. So these girls are making friends from all over Martin County."
The camp has support from the community, from Gold Cross being on hand to help teach first aid tips, to Waste Management supplying recycling barrels for the girls' "garbage hike."
"We stress that we leave the area cleaner than we found it," Kueker said. "We talked about the best way to pack a lunch for 'going green.'"
And with a very hot and humid day Tuesday, the girls got an impromptu lesson in compromise.
"It was so humid we couldn't start the fires to cook our food," Teskey said. "They were willing to adapt, so they ate their s'mores while they waited for the lunch meal to cook."
"The girls cook their own food, they wash their own dishes, they know they 'get what they get'; that what is on their plate is what they get." Kueker added.
And the girls got to sample foods from the other troops on the last day. All the foods the girls prepared were sent home in a cookbook - with the preferred cooking methods ranging from dutch oven, foil oven or stick cooking.
"The girls practiced all of them," Teskey said.
Along with learning valuable skills, the camp is meant to encourage more girls to join Scouting when fall arrives.
"We usually do signups during the second week of school and we have a carnival," Kueker said. "But we also have girls that just come to the camp, and that's OK too ... It shows we do things all year round, not just during the school year."
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07-29-10 10:45 AM
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I love day camp! I'm so glad to see this tradition is still ongoing all these years after I attended.
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