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Both of my kids are in Girl Scouts. They both love it. They love their troops. They love the activities. They love the involvement. And I like that they enjoy it.
What I don't like is that these Girl Scouts activities are completely draining my wallet. Every activity they do is $10-16. And they have at least one a month, sometimes two. And I have two kids doing these activities. You do the math.
In addition, they come up with these ridiculous charity projects, with absolutely no warning. You know, I'm all for charity and all, but really I feel they need to consult parents before they sign up girls for these events.
Rebekah's troop charity project is every week one girl (read: one girl's parents) pick up four (4!) huge black garbage bags of empty bottles from school (devil only knows where the school gets these bottles). Then you have to drive around town between Costco, BJ's, Walmart, Pathmak, Stop&Shop, and other stores and return these bottles to get 5-10 cents per bottle. Because all these bottles are different brands and store brands are only accepted at those stores, etc, this ends up being an almost 5-hour project. They collecting these money every week and donating them to a sick boy's family in school. We haven't done this yet. My turn is in 2 weeks, but those parents that did this were cursing everything in sight when they were telling me about it. The note from troop leader sent home urged parents to display 'appropriate attitude towards charity and giving while doing this, so that girls can learn good values'.
Hannah's troop decided that they will donate care packages to our local women's shelter. Therefore, each girl in Hannah's troop is supposed to bring a brand new store bought blanket, book, and stuffed toy for their next troop meeting. These will be put in special totes and delivered to the shelter for those kids that stay there. Yes, like I don't have anything better to do then to go a buy blankets, books, and toys, while I am on unemployment and barely scraping by as is. Regardless, we went and we bought. And I don't know about you, but I can't buy crap. So at Target we ended up finding a nice fleece kid-themed cover for $16, plus small toy and a book.
Oh, and one other thing. Tomorrow Hannah's troop is going on the trip to the ACMoore for a craft class. I will need to pick her up from school at 3:30, drop her off at ACMoore by 4pm, and then then pick her up from ACMoore at 5pm. Mind you that Rebekah has her troop meeting at school which also ends at 5pm. How am I supposed to be at school and ACMoor which i s 15 min away at the same time at 5pm is beyond me. I originally explained this to Hannah's troop leader and she offerd to drop Hannah off at home after the craft while I pick up Rebekah. BUT, I just got an email from this leader saying that she's sick and she won't be at the craft tomorrow, so now I don't have anybody to pick up Hannah and I'm back to needing to be in two places at once. I think I will just pick up Rebekah from her meeting 15 min earlier.
What bugs me the most about this though, is that it is assumed that there are parents available to do all this driving around, thus it is assumed that parents are not working. WTF!?!?! What if I did work and had my kids in after school with no way to pick them up before 6pm?
Two years ago when Rebekah's troop did the trip to ACMoore, they had the whole troop going together from school on a school bus and then they all returned to school afterwards.
Ok, I'm done ranting for now. I don't feel better, but I'm done for now.
What I don't like is that these Girl Scouts activities are completely draining my wallet. Every activity they do is $10-16. And they have at least one a month, sometimes two. And I have two kids doing these activities. You do the math.
In addition, they come up with these ridiculous charity projects, with absolutely no warning. You know, I'm all for charity and all, but really I feel they need to consult parents before they sign up girls for these events.
Rebekah's troop charity project is every week one girl (read: one girl's parents) pick up four (4!) huge black garbage bags of empty bottles from school (devil only knows where the school gets these bottles). Then you have to drive around town between Costco, BJ's, Walmart, Pathmak, Stop&Shop, and other stores and return these bottles to get 5-10 cents per bottle. Because all these bottles are different brands and store brands are only accepted at those stores, etc, this ends up being an almost 5-hour project. They collecting these money every week and donating them to a sick boy's family in school. We haven't done this yet. My turn is in 2 weeks, but those parents that did this were cursing everything in sight when they were telling me about it. The note from troop leader sent home urged parents to display 'appropriate attitude towards charity and giving while doing this, so that girls can learn good values'.
Hannah's troop decided that they will donate care packages to our local women's shelter. Therefore, each girl in Hannah's troop is supposed to bring a brand new store bought blanket, book, and stuffed toy for their next troop meeting. These will be put in special totes and delivered to the shelter for those kids that stay there. Yes, like I don't have anything better to do then to go a buy blankets, books, and toys, while I am on unemployment and barely scraping by as is. Regardless, we went and we bought. And I don't know about you, but I can't buy crap. So at Target we ended up finding a nice fleece kid-themed cover for $16, plus small toy and a book.
Oh, and one other thing. Tomorrow Hannah's troop is going on the trip to the ACMoore for a craft class. I will need to pick her up from school at 3:30, drop her off at ACMoore by 4pm, and then then pick her up from ACMoore at 5pm. Mind you that Rebekah has her troop meeting at school which also ends at 5pm. How am I supposed to be at school and ACMoor which i s 15 min away at the same time at 5pm is beyond me. I originally explained this to Hannah's troop leader and she offerd to drop Hannah off at home after the craft while I pick up Rebekah. BUT, I just got an email from this leader saying that she's sick and she won't be at the craft tomorrow, so now I don't have anybody to pick up Hannah and I'm back to needing to be in two places at once. I think I will just pick up Rebekah from her meeting 15 min earlier.
What bugs me the most about this though, is that it is assumed that there are parents available to do all this driving around, thus it is assumed that parents are not working. WTF!?!?! What if I did work and had my kids in after school with no way to pick them up before 6pm?
Two years ago when Rebekah's troop did the trip to ACMoore, they had the whole troop going together from school on a school bus and then they all returned to school afterwards.
Ok, I'm done ranting for now. I don't feel better, but I'm done for now.
