| | Our 2022 Community Partner
While the challenges continue, so do the good works done by our neighbors, our teachers, our health care providers, our volunteers and so many others. This is their story. Ledyard National Bank is proud to support the 2022 Hometown Heroes, who were nominated by members of the community and selected by editors of the Concord Monitor. Nominate your Hometown Hero Today. |
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| | Hometown Heroes: Sheila Morris brings it all together for Girl Scouts troop
By EILEEN O’GRADY Monitor staff
Sheila Morris remembers fondly her time as a Girl Scout in Albany and the role her mother played as her troop’s leader.
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| So when Morris’s own oldest daughter joined the Girl Scouts at age 5, Morris knew she wanted to carry on the tradition and get involved as a troop leader herself.
This year marks Morris’s 24th year as a Girl Scout troop leader. Morris says she has led at least two troops at a time, and even as many as three troops at a time for the past 12 years, and she is always quick to jump in and help out if another troop leader needs assistance. She estimates that on a typical week she does about 20 hours of Girl Scout work, and during the “busy season,” from November until April – which includes cookie season – she dedicates as many as 40 or 50 hours a week.
She estimates that she has mentored around 200 girls in all her troops over the years, a number that doesn’t even include other leaders’ troops that she has assisted.
“I just think it’s a great program because I feel like it brings together a group of kids – that wouldn’t necessarily always choose that same group of kids – to make decisions, and try new things,” Morris said. “Especially at the younger age when they do those badges where they’re learning or experimenting.”
Besides being a troop leader, Morris is also the area’s Community Cookie Chair, which she describes as a “full-time unpaid job” every year from January to April, and she takes care of community finance. She’s also the liaison to the regional Girl Scouts Council, which means she runs leader meetings, sends out information and offers support to new troop leaders.
That’s all in addition to her part-time job as an attendance enforcer at the Concord Regional Technical Center at Concord High School, where she works with students on attendance contracts and credit recovery plans.
Together with the Girl Scouts and other troop leaders, Morris has been behind well-known community events like face-painting at KidZone at the Market Days Festival, games at Halloween Howl and caroling at Midnight Merriment, as well as Girl Scout camporees, craft nights and science nights. She also launched eight-week after-school Girl Scout sessions at the former Dame School – now Mill Brook School – as a way of making the organization more accessible to new American students who were moving to the area and had limited transportation. The Girl Scouts program is still running at both Mill Brook and Broken Ground School today, although Morris no longer leads them.
“My biggest success is just seeing these girls flourish. That is probably one of my main reasons I stay in it, is seeing that confidence and character-building and feelings of self-worth that the girls develop.”
An avid traveler herself, Morris co-founded a “Travel Troop” in 2010 that focused on providing girls with traveling experience and life and leadership skills. Morris said she founded the Travel Troop because she believes it’s important to give girls of all ages the opportunity to try things they’ve never tried before, and do something they might not otherwise get to do.
“I just remember the first time a girl was like, ‘what’s a hotel?’ ” Morris said. “I think it’s just an eye-opener that some of these kids would never do anything that we do outside of this.”
Over the years, Morris’s Girl Scout Travel Troop has gone on nearer trips like Portland, Newport, Lake George and Lake Placid, and farther trips like Washington D.C., Florida, Costa Rica, London, Ireland, Paris, and most recently the Thousand Islands and the Azore Islands. In April, they’re going to Saint Lucia. When they travel, Morris places an emphasis on learning about the culture and history of the place they’re visiting.
Morris encourages the girls to take charge during trip planning, making decisions about what places they want to see. She often has them take the lead on certain aspects of the trip, to plan what time the group is going to leave in the morning and what they will need to bring with them, or how much money to leave as a tip at the ice cream stand.
“I think this is something they get to do, that they might not otherwise get to do. One of the girls that was new on the trips was like, ‘oh, my God, now I want to travel.’ We hope to inspire them to explore.”
Morris tries to motivate the girls to be comfortable in their own skin, coaxing them to dance at concerts even when they’re feeling shy. Morris also talks openly with the girls about her own health issues, explaining that while she is aware of her own limitations, she doesn’t let them define her.
She provides opportunities for leadership and learning during regular Girl Scout activities like cookie sales too, as the girls work together, practice their customer service skills and learn to count change.
“I just feel like it gives them confidence, out of their comfort zone,” Morris said. “Even just at a cookie booth.”
Morris says she plans to continue her Girl Scout work for the foreseeable future, health permitting.
“As long as I am able to and can do it, I would love to stay involved,” she said.
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