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• Hayrides
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• For a more complete list Click Here

About Us

Welcome to the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois’ new and improved website.  As we continue to grow and expand our services and programs, we want to ensure that our girls and volunteers have easy access to all these wonderful resources and opportunities.  Based on your feedback from our recent survey, we have improved our GSSI website to make it more user-friendly and attractive, and contain the information and resources our girls and volunteers requested.  Please continue to give us your feedback so we can continue to improve our website for YOU.

On October 1, 2011, GSSI will complete its second year as a newly integrated council and, thanks to YOU, we have been very successful and achieved more in these last two post-alignment years.   I am pleased to share that:

• We have experienced a membership growth for the first time in several years and have successfully reversed the trend in declining membership.
• We have maintained girl membership at 13% of market share and increased our girl and adult retention rate to over 64% -- above the national average.
• We provided over 350 programs and opportunities to girls throughout our council jurisdiction and increased member participation.
• We continue to maintain a healthy, balanced budget. We are good stewards of the funds you entrusted to us.
• We provided almost $100,000 in financial assistance to girls throughout southern Illinois.  We have maintained our commitment to provide financial assistance so all girls, regardless of income, have the opportunity to participate in Girl Scouts.
• We have initiated several new programs for our girls, including the Girl Scout Apprentice Program, Cookie Business College and Girl Scouting in Detention Centers.
• We continue to spread Girl Scouting in underserved areas, including East St. Louis and public housing complexes.
• We completed our Strategic Planning process and will be implementing these plans over the next three years.
• We have some exciting plans to celebrate our 100th year Anniversary and hope to have each and every one of you involved in this celebration
• We have revived our Juliette Gordon Low Society and hope that you will become a Founding Member during this historic 100th Anniversary year.

Now, our challenge is to continue this momentum to propel GSSI from being “Good to Great!” As we enter our 2011-2012 membership year and Girl Scouting’s 100th Anniversary, we will continue to focus on our girls and our dedicated volunteers. Our goal is to ensure that every girl throughout southern Illinois will have the opportunity to benefit from the Girl Scout Leadership Experience so that she can make a difference in her family, her community, her country and the world. We want to provide an outstanding leadership experience to our members – we want to give our girls what they need in ways they want - and working together with our volunteers, friends and partners, we will continue to build on our successes.

As we launch the celebration of our 100th Anniversary, we invite all of you to get involved and be a part of this historic Girl Scout milestone. There are many 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouting opportunities, events and activities for everyone and we look forward to working with you to make this a celebration to remember.

With your support, GSSI will continue to provide a premier Girl Scout Leadership Experience for our nearly 14,000 girls and 4,800 adult volunteers.

Thank you

Villie M. Appoo
Chief Executive Officer