We wanted to provide some clarifications to the financial assistance policies since they seem to be a moving target lately.

If families are unable to afford a Girl Scout experience such as the service unit summer camporee or the Savannah trip, financial assistance may be available to help you out. Financial assistance is even available for troop outdoor experiences – not just council or service unit sponsored events.

Council

The first stop for financial assistance should be council. Se the 2017/2018 Financial Assistance Form and the Financial Assistance for SU Day Camps & Troop Outdoor Experiences Form.

Council by far has the largest financial assistance budget available. If you need help navigating their process, please contact GSHPA customer care or one of our membership staff: Arion Moser (amoser@GSHPA.org), Casey Miller (cmiller@gshpa.org) or Susan Smith (ssmith@gshpa.org). Your troop leader may also be able to help you find the form you need.

Service Unit

If council is unable to provide financial assistance, you may request aid from our “Campership Fund” for Service Unit level camporees.

Last year the Service Unit began setting aside money to help families that may fall through the cracks with council’s financial assistance program. Council may run out of money or a family may make just too much money to qualify and have extenuating circumstances that make things difficult.

If you are requesting aid from the Service Unit, contact the camp committee and explain your situation. We will want to know how much you are asking for and what elements of your situation are pertinent to why you need help. We will keep all such information confidential.

We want girls to go to camp.

We believe that camp is important and that the experience helps build girls of character with confidence and courage. Camp builds bonds of friendships and helps us grow as both leaders and girls.

We also beleive that part of our mission as Girl Scout leaders is to create opportunities for girls. We hope that the 2019 Savannah trip is the start of many more large scale service unit excursions. We hope that our campership fund will continue to grow and that we will be able to support the dreams of all our girls.

So we WANT you there. If you can’t afford it, we want to help you. We do not want any girl to not be able to participate due to financial reasons. We want our girls to dream big and we want our girls to know that they can do anything they set thier mind to.

We also realize that our funds are limited. Property rentals cost money. Food costs money. Everything costs money. So we need to use our resources wisely and make sure the families who really need it are getting the help they need.

As a small community, I’m sure we can make that happen. We are all sisters to every girl scout and sisters help each other out.

Troop

Regardless of the council or service unit decisions, we would encourage you to talk to your troop leader. Your troop leader is in the best position to help you find the funds to make that trip happen. Perhaps your troop has set aside “experience” money from their cookie sale that they can send your way. If your troop leader knows that event costs are too much, she or he may budget additional fund raisers throughout the year so the troop can pick up more of the event costs.