Girls Scouts Find Common Ground at JMM
A blog post by Assistant Director Deborah Cardin. To read more posts from Deborah click HERE.
On Sunday, January 18, the JMM was privileged to host a very special group. Girls Scout Junior Troop #10038 attended an afternoon program dedicated to their pursuit of two badges: Public Speaking and Finding Common Ground.
The afternoon started with a tour of our exhibits for the girls and their families. The girls easily made connections between the day’s theme and the life and time of Mendes Cohen as they explored The A-mazing Mendes Cohen. They especially enjoyed the Make Your Voice Heard station where they recorded themselves speaking on behalf of important personal issues.
After the tour, we made our way to the library where the girls had the chance to explore a variety of books from the JMM library assembled for their enjoyment by JMM collections manager, Joanna Church. They donned white gloves and carefully turned the pages as they examined the books’ bindings and pages, an extension activity of a previous badge they had worked on, Booking Making.
They were delighted to meet three special guests who joined them for the program: Girls Scouts of Central Maryland, CEO, Violet Apple, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (whose daughter is a troop member) and Senator Ben Cardin (whose granddaughter is also in the troop, who coincidentally happens to be my daughter as well!) Who better to provide counsel on the topics of public speaking and finding common ground then these two distinguished public servants who have spent their entire careers in the public arena. They also raised the example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as someone who was able to affect change through the power of his voice and who was able to skillfully know how to find common ground while not compromising his goals for the Civil Rights Movement.
Each troop member had the opportunity to practice delivering excerpts from a famous speech using the tips and pointers provided by Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Senator Cardin.
Visit http://gscm.org/about/ to learn more about Girls Scouts of Central Maryland.