Brussels Girl Scouts celebrating 112th Anniversary of Girl Scouting

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The Brussels Girl Scouts will be celebrating the 112th Anniversary of Girl Scouting in the USA on Tuesday, March 12, with more than 2.6 current Girl Scout members nationwide. Throughout Girl Scouting’s long and distinguished history, Scouting has inspired millions of girls and women with the highest ideals of character, conduct and patriotism, including the 13,000 current members of the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois Council, which include the 26 girls and five leaders of Brussels Troop 405.

This week March 10-16 is Girl Scout week. During this special week, it is an important time for Girl Scouts to reflect and celebrate the many goals achieved and accomplishments both individually and as a group over the past year. The Brussels Troop has always been inspired to pull off numerous community service projects. One of the biggest being a food drive with approximately 650 drive bags being placed on residents’ doors between March 5-10 from the Batchtown area south. The Girl Scouts along with National Honor Society Members from the Brussels High School will return to homes on Saturday, March 16, starting at 9 a.m. to retrieve filled food drive bags left in a visible spot. The NHS members and Scouts will bring the food, personal hygiene and cleaning supplies collected to St. Matthew’s Church Hall to be sorted and then boxed into categories before being delivered to St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry in Hardin. If you did not receive a food drive bag but would like to donate please contact one of the Brussels Girl Scout Leaders Nancy Robeen, Amanda Brodbeck, Rachael Friedel, Debbie Kamp or Food Drive chair and Leader Diane Tepen at 618-946-2002.

The other community service endeavors this busy Troop takes part in is the Veterans dinner and program hosted each November. Christmas caroling and spreading joy happens on the first Saturday of December as visits are made to senior citizens who do not have the opportunity to get out much, residents of the CILA facility and folks of the Calhoun Nursing and Rehab home. Coming up on March 15 & 22 the Scouts will be practicing their people skills along with learning how it feels to do a job to the best of your ability and be appreciated for the work as they assist the Brussels American Legion with their annual fish fries. On Saturday, April 6, Troop 405 will be scouring the side of county roads picking up trash littering our beautiful countryside. Please be aware of scouts and adult volunteers that morning as they sport orange vests and display newly purchased signs alerting traffic of their presence. For Memorial Day the Girl Scouts again team up with the Brussels American Legion members placing flags on Veterans graves. The leaders try to emphasize the gratitude each of us should feel for our Veterans and the current men and women of our armed services. This dedicated group of people ensure us of the many freedoms we enjoy and sometimes take for granted. Even though Troop 405’s official scouting year is over by the time summer rolls around the Scouts are still willing to assist two additional community activities, “Art in the Park” and “Brussels 4th of July Celebration”. As in previous years on June 1st and July 3rd, the girls will be present in uniforms to help kick off each of these events with the presentation of the flag and leading of the Pledge of Allegiance.

This marvelous group of Girl Scouts spends a large amount of time and energy on community service projects but still find time to enjoy many amazing fun and educational activities. Last summer the five high school-age Scouts had a dream come true as they made a long-planned trip to Savannah, Georgia to visit the area where Girl Scouting officially started back in 1912 by founder Juliette Gordan Low. During this amazing trip, the Senior and Ambassador Scouts were able to see and experience many wonderful things. Some of them were a tour and tea at Juliette’s historic home, they visited Old Fort Jackson learning what it was like to be a soldier there, visited Tybee Island Marine Science Center, learned about bees and sampled different flavors of honey at Savannah Bee Company, took a dolphin excursion, along with both a trolley and horse-drawn carriage rides that allowed the group to view many of Savannah’s architectural styles, that included the visit to numerous open area squares that are gathering places of beauty and rich in history. Many from the group of five scouts and three leaders experienced some first in paddle boarding, spending time at the beach and in the ocean.

Recently the Scouts along with many young ladies of our community were invited to attend the “Me & My Guy Dance” that had a fun Mardi Gras theme. This event was a night filled with memory making for a large crowd of girls & their dates, that could be Dads, Grandpas, Uncles, Brothers, or other important people in their lives. This event was put together by a dedicated committee made up of Girl Scout parent volunteers and leaders. It was a magical evening since it had not taken place in 4 years due to Covid. However, it is already in the books for 2026 since it is an event that Hardin and Brussels swap hosting every other year.

An upcoming fun activity the girls are anticipating is a sleepover where all levels of scouts will have the opportunity to make a time capsule to be sealed and not opened till 2029. During this event, the older scouts will be opening time capsules that have been sealed for 5 years. They are highly anticipating what items may have been placed in the time capsules, goals reached and viewing pictures of how everyone has changed and grown over the past five years.

The Brussels Girl Scouts are thankful for the tremendous support that the Calhoun community has given them this past year as they finish up 8 community service projects, continue to become knowledgeable through badge work at their twice monthly meetings and keep experiencing many fun activities.

If you are interested in learning more about the Brussels Girl Scouting program please contact one of the leaders listed above. They can tell you all about the five levels of scouting Daisy, Brownies, Junior, Cadette, Senior and Ambassador that cover girls in Kindergarten through the 12th grade. Scouting is a wonderful program that builds girls of courage, confidence and character as they strive to make the world a better place.