100th Year Celebration in Savannah

By: Brittany G.

It was Saturday morning, March 12, and my troop was in Savannah. The day could not have been more delightful; the sky was blue, and the breeze made the air the perfect temperature. The weather made us all excited, for we would spend the entire day outside and there was no better way to start the day than with a ferry ride across the river. The girls in my troop were thrilled with this because they love ferry rides. Even though it was only a five-minute ride, it was enough to get us pumped up. On the other side of the river, we signed in for the bridging ceremony, which wasn’t the formal ceremony that you would normally think of, but rather just us walking across a bridge. The significance of walking the bridge was to symbolize Girl Scouts bridging into a new century since 2012 is the 100th year of Girl Scouting.

We spent the next hour walking the span of the bridge, which was not as boring as it would seem. Probably around 100 other girls were walking the bridge at the same time. We talked to a couple troops during the walk. One troop was from Texas, and the other ventured all the way from California! That made our drive from Atlanta seem not as long! It was really interesting to talk with them.

After talking for a little while, they asked if we had made any swaps. Up until then, we had thought nothing about our swaps. So, these two troops became the first two to swap with us and they certainly weren’t the last!

Once we had completed the walk across the bridge, there was a bus that took us to the park for a celebration. When we stepped out of the bus and into the park, we immediately heard music and saw people dancing. We traveled toward the sounds. While walking there, we meet two of our leader’s former Scouts. They hung out with us the rest of the day. They walked with us through the crowds of Girl Scouts and helped us find a seat right in front of the giant stage. Right then, there was a fiddler who was playing music on the stage. We all started singing along when he played Oh Susanna.

After we had marked our place with the bags we had carried with us, we grouped up into our pairs and went around to all the different venders and walked around trading swaps with other girls. In The huge field that was laid out in front of the stage was lined with all different kinds of venders and filled with almost three-thousand Girl Scouts. That’s a lot of girls! There were also multiple bouncy blowups that were placed in a field to the side. These were popular with a lot of the younger girls.

After a little while of doing our own thing, the announcer officially started the celebration with thanks to all who helped, and we all stated the Girl Scout Promise. After the intro of the event, she introduced a singer named Melinda Caroll. I didn’t know this until then, but Melinda is the singer who wrote the original Girl Scout song Change the World. Change the World was one of the many songs she sang for us. The next hour or two was filled with Girl Scout music, sing-a-longs, and dancing. Our troop was familiar with most of the songs, but some songs were new and inviting to us. Never will those new songs be forgotten with our troop.

We did dance along with some songs, such as Hey, Hey, Bo Diddley Bop and Show Us How You Get Down, we ended the celebration with a Girl Scout flashmob to Melinda Caroll’s song Ignite. This dance was completely unfamiliar to us, for we failed to look up the YouTube video, but luckily there were multiple girls up on stage dancing along for us to follow. The dance was so much fun, and the song was so inspiring. The song was created by Melinda for the Girls Scouts Rock the Mall event that took place in Washington DC this past Summer.

The flashmob was amazing and such a great end to the wonderful afternoon. After that dance, everything began to wind down a bit. Girls dispersed to trade swaps or get a snack or even go play on the blowups. We did all of the above! We first spent a while walking around and trading swaps with other girls. It’s really cool just to talk to them because we meet girls from all over. There were girls from Texas, Washington State, Ohio, and a lot from California. We could really connect with the ones from Seattle after our troop trip there, so that was very cool.

We got a bite to eat at one of the venders and went over to the field with the blowups so that we could play. A couple of us just sat around talking to two Girl Scout Seniors we met while the other girls from our troop went to play. It was amusing to see my troop members on the blow ups, especially the one were you wear a Velcro vest and you throw yourself at a Velcro wall. One member of our troop was stuck up on the wall for a moment! 

Afterwards, we walked to Juliette Gordon Low’s birthplace and visited the church where she was married.   Before heading back to Atlanta the next day, we officially ended our celebration with a small ceremony at Juliette Gordon Low’s gravesite.  It was a moving experience for us all and a fitting end to our 100th year celebration.

Brittany G. and her troop visit Savannah, Georgia on March 12, 2012.