Lauren Estes- Velez

Hartselle Enquirer

 Morgan County Girl Scouts met at the pavilion area of Sparkman Park on June 16 to conduct a day long camp involving 65 kids from across the county, with the focus being girls, but the troop leader said a few little brothers tagged along.

Troop leader April Reed of Hartselle said they plan a day camp for the Girl Scouts every year where they gather for different arts and crafts and team building exercises.

“The kids learned how to make ice cream this year, which isn’t an extremely difficult process, but there are many small details that go into making ice cream,” Reed said. “We take two zip lock bags and outer bag is for the ice and the rock salt and the inner bag is for the half and half, vanilla extract and other ingredients. You just shake the bag until it becomes soft and has the ice cream texture. The kids also did several other projects throughout the day.

Reed said they do the day camp every year and are wanting to do an additional one in the fall where they actually camp out.

“We’re going to try and stay here and camp out tonight if the rain doesn’t run us off,” Reed said. “We have all of our camping gear underneath the pavilion, so we will have that to hold off the rain.”

Seven-year old Mackenzie Sharp said she attends Barkley Bridge Elementary and this is her second year attending the Girl Scouts day camp.

“My favorite thing that we have done is make the yarn dolls,” Sharp said. “I decided to make mine green because that is our team color.”

Priceville Elementary student Emma Landrun said she enjoyed making whirley gigs the best.

“You can paint the whirligigs any color,” Landrun said. “They’re long and hang and twirl. They are really neat to make.”

Among the paper dolls, whirligigs and ice cream, the students also made birdfeeders, had a scavenger hunt, did embroidering, sang songs and held a camp fire with s’more making.

The Girl Scouts group is about a whole lot more than selling cookies; it’s about team building. Although, the Girl Scout cookies are tasty.