Emilee, a member of American Heritage Girls Troop MN2931, recently completed the requirements for American Heritage Girls (AHG)’s second highest honor, the Abigail Adams Award.
A major portion of the award is to plan and implement a community outreach or multi-troop project. Emilee’s project was to organize the food service for the Homeschool Northland Conference 2022 in Hermantown. This involved meal planning, asking for donations, and many hours spent preparing food. Other requirements for the award included completing one badge from each area, or frontier, of the handbook, and to write an article about AHG.
But what is American Heritage Girls? Emilee says, “Do you wish that there was a Christian scouting group for your daughters? Well, there is! American Heritage Girls is a Christ-centered organization whose goal is to build women of integrity through service to God, family, community, and country. Girls ages 5 to 18 practice being compassionate, helpful, honest, loyal, perseverant, pure, resourceful, respectful, responsible, and reverent while earning badges and serving their community.”
Emilee’s mother spoke with the coordinator of Troop MN2931and thought that AHG would be a good fit for Emilee. Emilee says, “I was agreeable [to the idea].” She enjoyed “meeting new people, renewing old friendships, and making many new [friendships]. My favorite part of it now is spending time with said friends. Learning things with the badges has also been very enjoyable.”
Badgework in AHG covers many subjects. “Badges such as Citizenship and Government, Caring for Creation, Camping, Archery, Cooking, Sewing, Horticulture, Astronomy and so many other interesting and enjoyable areas of explorations give opportunity for growth and learning,” Emilee explains.
Girl leadership is another big aspect of American Heritage Girls. “Girls gain leadership skills as they step up alongside the younger girls at each meeting, to share with them what they have learned. Long term goal planning and leadership really come into play as they work towards long-term awards,” says Emilee.
Emilee extends the invitation to girls to “join us in the fun of learning and helping in the community!” You can visit https://americanheritagegirls.org to learn more about AHG and to find local troops in our region and across the nation.
