There’s a Good Credit badge and a Money Manager badge, Locavore, Website Designer, and Netiquette badges, a Science of Happiness badge, and, as a component of a cookie-badge program that has been expanded, a Customer Loyalty badge.
At a time when girls have many extracurricular options, the wide-ranging revamp - the first in 25 years - is an attempt to stay relevant.
“The girls said, ‘We love the camping, we love the cookies, but we want the Girl Scouts to be more about what we’re about,’ ’’ Bramson said.
Badges have always reflected their times; in 1916 the Telegraph badge seemed cutting edge, and in 1920 a Canning badge was pertinent. But in the age of YouTube, the local food movement, and Occupy Wall Street, Girl Scouts have different concerns.
“I don’t want to be one of the people who have bad finances,’’ said Shannon Leary, 17, a senior at the Woodward School in Quincy. She plans to start working toward a financial literacy badge as soon as she is done with college applications.
“A lot of people go to college and open credit cards and spend a lot of money, and then you’re in debt at a really early age and you have a poor credit score,’’ she said. “No one really wants that.’’
Leary also plans to earn a badge for another headline-making subject - the environment. Her interest follows a Girl Scouts trip to Peru and Costa Rica. “The tour guide said the rain forests were being chopped down for cattle, or global warming was impacting them,’’ she said. “I want to do my best to save the world, even though I know that sounds really cliché.’’
In Reading, Kasey Cook, 16, is working toward an updated First Aid badge, and two of the steps involve educating herself about sports-related head injuries and drug and alcohol abuse.
“Unfortunately in Reading in the past couple of months there have been a lot of drug or alcohol-related deaths,’’ Cook said. “If you know the signs [of drug or substance abuse], maybe you’ll be able to help. The worst thing is to be uneducated.’’
