My daughter is an American Heritage Girl. Last year she was a tenderheart this year she will be an explorer.
My girls were in for a partial year. The group was disbanded due to poor leadership (actually closed by the national council). I love the concept though!
That stinks that your group was disbanded. It is hard to get good leadership sometimes. Our troop is a spin off of another troop. Dd is actually going camping with them in another week. I still have to get dd a khaki skort since she moved up a level.
American Heritage Girls is the sister program of the Boy Scouts of America. A local homeschool co-op has theirs paired together. Their AHG and BSA have their meetings on the same night, same time, same location, and they do their camping trips together. That way, the whole family does their scouting together--- sisters in one group and brothers in the other. A lot of people mistakenly think the Girl Scouts are the sister organization of the Boy Scouts, but the AHG are their female partners.
AHG was started as an alternative to Girl Scouts to really bring scouting back to the basics and keep God in it. It is a Christian organization and some of the badges do contain requirements to read sections of the Bible or even watch a Veggietales program. In 2009 Boy Scouts of America sign a memorandum of mutal support with them. This is why we can do some of our leader training through the boy scout site. Alot of the badges are skill building badges which many people feel Girl Scouts is moving away from. There is also a service element to AHG. They really want the girls to develop a servants heart. The girls participate in service projects and receive awards based on the number of hours they do.
oh man!!! it sound GREAT I was hoping that it wasn't going to be that awesome, cuase now we have to try and fit it in our schedule LOL
If you get good leaders it is an amazing program. One thing I really like is that the handbook stays the same for every level, there are just different badage requirements for the different age groups. One of the nice things about our group is we only meet every other week during the school year. It really helps keep it from being overwhelming. There is also a good mix of public school and homeschool kids in our group which is nice. I hope you can fit it in and your daughter has a great time.
Thanks for the great info. Mschickie This one meets every other week, but I wish it was only once a month. I hope we can fit it in our busy schedule LOL
My girls, 8 and 5, are starting AHG this year. I'm lucky in that the leaders have been Girl Scout leaders in the past so they are experienced and phenomenal leaders. We went to an "open house" of sorts to visit another troop and i'm super excited for them to join. They have a badge in car repair!! So cool!!
It sounds like something we would really enjoy, but our local chapter only meets on Thursday nights and that is our mid-week church service. I'm not sure if I want to spread myself out anymore right now though, so that may be a blessing in disguise! ;-)