Avon Lake Girl Scouts celebrate a 10-year anniversary with a first time Winter Wonderland for kids

Avon Lake Girl Scouts celebrate a 10-year anniversary with a first time Winter Wonderland for kids

AVON LAKE, Ohio - Avon Lake Girl Scouts from Troop #50106 took younger children under their wings for a fun and instructional fundraising event on December 9. The event was called Winter Wonderland and offered games and crafts for kids from pre-school through fourth grade at the city's old firehouse community room.

Margie Steele and Pattie Ferrari are the troop leaders. Steele founded the troop when the girls were in the first grade. Originally there were 21 girls. Now there are only 12. But Steele said the 12 are working just as hard as they ever did to earn their badges. In addition, they are raising funds for another "Big Trip"--the last one before the girls' graduation.

Previous big trips, according to Steele, have included rafting in West Virginia, a zero-gravity experience at NASA, zip lining, camping and many others. Plans in the making include even the possibilities of Hawaii or Iceland.

"We hosted about 70 children (at Winter Wonderland), ages 2-10, at 10 different stations," said Steele. "The children really made an impact on the girls. The kids all laughed because they got their feet tickled as their feet were painted to make mistletoe pictures; there was googly eyes everywhere as they made candy cane reindeers at Eva's station; Marguerite and Caroline had jingle bells tossed at them at the jingle bell toss; and poor Maddie had icing and sprinkles spilled at her cookie decorating station."

Steele said what touched her heart, though, was when Santa Skyped into the event to wish the kids Merry Christmas. When his face appeared on the giant screen, Steele said, the kids got so excited. He called the kids by name and asked them if they were good and asked what they wanted for Christmas. One little boy kept saying that's not a real Santa, but when Santa said, "Is there a Daniel there?" the boy danced around and said, "That's Santa and he's talking to me!"

Ali Steele, 16, a sophomore, reflected on all that Girl Scouts has meant to her. "...I wouldn't trade the memories I have made with my Troop for the world. Some people believe Girl Scouts is just selling cookies...but our Troop consists of my closest friends. Through Girl Scouts I have made friends with girls I never would have met otherwise, as we all come from different interests and activities. I absolutely love being a Girl Scout..."

At the Winter Wonderland lunch break, the girls reflected on the morning session and talked about their experiences. They came up with ideas to make the afternoon session even better.

"That was when it dawned on me," said Margie Steele, "that these girls are becoming young adults, solving problems and sharing ideas. They were each responsible for their own station, but the teamwork they displayed to make the event successful was remarkable."

Steele said she hopes they can bring Winter Wonderland back again next year. In the meantime, those ever-popular fundraising cookies will arrive again in January.

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Why Were All the Player Escorts in the USA-Germany Game Girls?

Why Were All the Player Escorts in the USA-Germany Game Girls?

Why no boys?

Vis Fox

On Tuesday night, a few minutes before the kickoff of the Women’s World Cup semifinal between the U.S. and Germany, the starting players for each side walked onto the pitch accompanied by 22 young children. This intergenerational spectacle is familiar to even casual soccer fans: The children are youth players who’ve been selected as player escorts, and they’re an expected sight at professional soccer games around the world. Their purpose is basically to embody the connection between players and young fans (and to make FIFA look good). “The Youth Programme highlights the importance FIFA places on enabling children to connect with the sport from an early age,” according to a FIFA press release.

Player escorts at men’s games are almost always co-ed, but the player escorts at the USA-Germany game last night were all girls. In fact, the vast majority of player escorts at this year’s World Cup have been girls, which is a shame and a missed opportunity. The message conveyed by the gender imbalance of the player escorts is that only girls should care about the Women’s World Cup. It would obviously be better for the sport and the fans to show that boys care about the Women’s World Cup, too.

FIFA and the Canadian national organizing committee behind the tournament aren’t forthcoming about why most of the player escorts at this year’s World Cup are female. The Youth Programme participants, which also include other, less visible roles, were selected from more than 50 soccer clubs based in and around the six host cities: Edmonton, Moncton, Montréal, Ottawa, Vancouver, and Winnipeg.* “Our local venue teams reached out to their various soccer communities (many of which had purchased group tickets to the Competition) in order to fill the roles of Player Escorts, Ball Crew and FIFA Flag Bearers,” explained Richard Scott, the director of communications for the Canada 2015 national organizing committee, in an email. “It is our understanding oftentimes a Club and/or Team would select the participants, such as having one team fill a particular role as they were all attending the game.”

I asked for clarification on what exactly this meant—did FIFA, the local venues, or someone else instruct local organizers to favor girls over boys as player escorts? I have yet to hear back. Regardless of whether the heavily female composition of the player escorts was intentional or simply a reflection of the types of youth teams that bought tickets to the tournament, it’s an unfortunate result.

If the organizers did favor girls on purpose, I’m sure that that decision came from a place of good intentions. It is indeed important to teach girls that they can grow up to play professional sports, if they’re driven and talented enough, and to show them women who have succeeded in careers that have traditionally been male-dominated. And in fields that have been historically controlled by white men, it can sometimes make sense to set aside positions for women or minorities in order to help correct the imbalances of the past.

But the FIFA Youth Programme isn’t an ideal place for girls-only roles. That’s because player escorts’ purpose is largely symbolic: The children are there to look up to professional footballers as a proxy for all the children (and adults) around the world who admire these gifted athletes. In the men’s game, the fact that player escorts are usually boys and girls represents that people of both sexes can and do respect professional male footballers.

The unintentional symbolism of excluding boys from walking out with the women’s national teams is that boys either don’t look up to female soccer players, or that boys shouldn’t look up to women’s soccer players. The latter is, needless to say, a terrible message. The women playing in this year’s World Cup are better athletes than the vast majority of boys and men who play soccer will ever be. If boys care about skill and athleticism, they should look up to Megan Rapinoe and Célia Šašić. And if they don’t currently look up to Rapinoe and Šašić, adults should teach them to! Women’s sports will never get the respect and attention they deserve if boys grow up believing that they needn’t care about female athletes.

Luckily, a glance in the stands indicates that many boys do care about the Women’s World Cup. As a fan watching from home, my favorite part of the tournament has been seeing shots of bleachers occupied by men and boys wrapped in flags and plastered with body paint, cheering themselves hoarse for their women’s national team. I only wish FIFA would catch up with the fans and go find some Canadian boys to walk out with England and Japan today. Because the sight of a young boy literally looking up to a world-class female soccer player would be a powerful symbol of the respect that all soccer fans—male and female—owe the women’s sport. 

Correction, July 1, 2015: This post originally misspelled Ottawa.

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Girl, 4, leaves home alone in search of midnight snack

Girl, 4, leaves home alone in search of midnight snack

Annabelle Ridgeway is blissfully unaware of the drama she caused when she decided to satisfy a craving for her favourite snack in the middle of the night.

The four-year-old grabbed her raincoat, slipped out of her house in Philadelphia at 3am and hopped on a bus in search of a frozen drink.

Bus driver Harlan Jenifer said Annabelle swung her legs in a seat as she chanted, "All I want is a slushie!"

Annabelle's antics were caught on CCTV (SEPTA)

Annabelle's family had no idea she had awoken and unlocked the back door to start her quest during a downpour in the early hours of Friday morning.

Surveillance video shows the girl sitting on the bus, chatting to other passengers before Mr Jenifer stopped the bus and called police.

Annabelle has no idea of the drama she caused (WPVI)

They took her to a nearby hospital, where she was reunited with her horrified mother, Jaclyn Mager.

"I'll be forever thankful," an emotional Ms Mager said afterwards.

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