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By Amelia Tarallo
Hometown Weekly Correspondent
An older scout dressed in a green sash helps a younger scout pin a celebratory red rose onto their brown sash. Local businesses offer discounts to anyone wearing a uniform. Trills and Chills, an a Capella group, perform on the gazebo. A blue tent decorated in green, white, and yellow balloons houses scrapbooks on display, a cake donated by Shaws and famous Girl Scout cookies. The celebration seen on the green in front of the library on June 15 marked 100 years to the day since the establishment of Medfield’s first Girl Scout troop.
100 years ago, Miss Inches and Miss Haskell established the Red Rose troop, Medfield's first Girl Scout troop. The two women had heard about the movement started by Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah, Georgia in 1912. At the time of its formation, the Red Rose troop had around 20 members. A hundred years later, there are 395 girls as well as 280 adult members participating in Medfield's Girl Scouts. These members have completed hundreds of service projects, earned thousands of badges, and have been awarded numerous honors, including at least 90 Gold Awards, the highest honor a Girl Scout can receive. Now, Medfield’s Girl Scouts have received recognition for 100 years of excellence.
The commemoration honored not only 100 years of Medfield Girl Scouts but also Ann Thompson and Denise Garlick, two former scouts who have continued to show the Girl Scout spirit in their interactions with the community. While receiving her award, Ann Thompson reflected on one of her first service projects after joining Girl Scouts at age seven. Her troop decided to knit squares that were stitched together to make blankets. Those blankets were then sent off to some of the many soldiers fighting during World War II. Thompson noted that, at the time, her troop felt they were helping those serving overseas feel better by sewing those squares. Years later, Thompson is known around Medfield as a town selectwoman, EMT, and other roles she has played around the community.
Medfield’s Girl Scouts will undoubtedly continue to serve the Medfield community with the “courage, confidence, and character” Juliette Gordon Low intended scouts to have when she first created the Girl Scouts. Years from now, current Daisy Scouts will become community leaders like Thompson and Garlick, applying what they learned during their years of scouting to their adult lives and improve their community one project at a time.
