N.C. Co-ops Help Pilot New Girl Scout Badge

The scouts met with (L to R) Nelle Hotchkiss, senior vice president of corporate relations; Safaniya Stevenson, community relations specialist; and Forehand.

Girl Scouts with Junior Troop 1248 in Holly Springs recently visited the statewide offices of North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives to earn their “Co-ops for Community” patch.

A pilot of the patch program was launched in North Carolina last October through collaboration between the Cooperative Council of North Carolina (CCNC) and the Girl Scouts of the North Carolina Coastal Pines.

“We’re excited to participate in this pilot program. We hosted a great group of scouts who asked some hard, insightful questions,” said Jane Forehand, director of management services & communications strategy for North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives. “In my mind, this is an example of living our principals — it’s our commitment to community in action.”

The program includes a tour of a cooperative business, and roughly two hours of patch activities, including review of the seven cooperative principles and co-op history, and (for older scouts) conceptualizing their own cooperative.

The scouts were treated to a tour of NCEMC’s operations center and provided with an overview of how power supply works. Managing the grid was likened to a bucket of water with a spigot going in and a spigot coming out: It’s the operations center’s job to balance the two so the bucket never overflows, and never runs dry.

The new scout patch program was developed by Cabot Creamery Cooperative in collaboration with the National Cooperative Business Association CLUSA International.