Girl Scouts of the USA Announces Plans for Council Mergers

National Girl Scout Council Realignment

For the past two years, Girl Scouts of the USA has been working to create a new Core Business Strategy for Girl Scouting. Work is proceeding on several fronts.  New program options are being explored, a single-entry system for volunteer recruitment is being tested, and marketing and funding strategies are being retooled.  As a part of this work, efforts are underway to reorganize council boundaries in order to create higher capacity Girl Scout councils that are better equipped to deliver on the promise of our mission: to build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place.  

GSUSA has recently distributed to councils a proposed map for how the Girl Scout councils in the country will look. The proposal affecting Buckeye Trails Council is a combination of the western portion of Ohio and a bit of northern Kentucky. This includes merging the following councils, all of which fall along the I-75 corridor: Maumee Valley ( Toledo), Appleseed Ridge ( Lima), Buckeye Trails ( Dayton), Great Rivers ( Cincinnati) and Licking Valley (northern Kentucky). All the councils involved are excited about the opportunity to combine our administrative and economic resources and provide better services and opportunity for girls and volunteers. This is just the start of a process that is expected to take 12-24 months to complete.

It is important that we view this initiative through a lens that is focused on the future. Changes today will make it possible for us to provide even better program to ever greater numbers of girls for decades to come.

We will continue to converse with, listen to and inform you - board members, volunteers, and paid staff - and work toward a seamless and effective transition.  We encourage you to email or phone in your questions.  We may not have answers to all your questions as this is still very much a work in progress.  However, you have our assurance that we will share information as it becomes available. 

Girl Scouting will continue to make a difference in girls’ lives during this time of realignment.  We hope we can count on you for support and input during this exciting time in Girl Scouts’ history.