Alumnae Story
My Sanctuary

By Carrie Ann Tripp
Fredericktown, Mo., Otakhi Council

If someone were to ask what made me want to join Girl Scouts, well, I wouldn't be able to honestly answer that question. However, ask me why I stayed in Girl Scouts from first grade to high school graduation, and I could talk your ear off. Girl Scouts opened the world to me. This program was more than crafts (which I hated and still do as a leader), songs (yes, I can still remember every word and MOTION!), and endless meetings. It was more than a place where I hung out with old friends while making new, more than an opportunity to try something I'd never tried before, it was my window to the world. Girl Scouts offered me hope.

While my family wasn't the poorest on the street, we were far from the richest. Add to that the fact that we lived in an extremely rural area, and you can easily figure out that my opportunities were limited. My family was what we now refer to as "dysfunctional." My daily life could go from a high to a lower than low status in one instant—Girl Scouts was my stability.

I went to summer camp every summer. Camp Cherokee Ridge holds a place in my heart to this day, and I dare say it will until the day I die. See, many years I was the only person from our troop to go to camp. I went alone, without friends, without a history, without the emotional rollercoaster called family. I was free. There were years I met girls on the first day and instantly became friends—hello, Beth and Vicki—and there were years I met girls the first day and then clung to the counselor all week! Some years I mastered new skills first, and other years I was the last one to catch on. It didn't matter. Cherokee Ridge was my sanctuary.

My husband now works close to Cherokee Ridge. He came home a couple of weeks ago telling me the guys that live down there say the council is going to sell it. My heart cried. I can't imagine that camp not being there. I hurt for the girls, like me, who won't have that sanctuary each summer; the girls who won't conquer their fear of riding horses to discover how much they LOVE riding horses. Or the ones who can't imagine passing the lifeguard test and turn out to be the only one in the group that does.

Camp turned into Wider Opportunities. Travel arrangements to Pittsburgh, Pa., a couple days with a host family, a week or so in a college dormitory, memorizing lines to a play, new friends, new experiences, and most importantly a sense of self-worth that I would never have been able to develop if I hadn't stuck with Girl Scouts.