By Gabriella Munoz Hawaii Catholic Herald
This summer, American Heritage Girls Troop #HI-0001 found a new home at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Pearl City.
American Heritage Girls (AHG) is a nationwide scouting program founded more than 20 years ago in Ohio by Patti Garibay that cultivates faith as an integral part of its foundation. According to its website, the American Heritage Girls mission is “building women of integrity through service to God, family, community, and country.”
Over the last decade the group has branched out, expanding its scope to boys, creating Trail Life USA. The organization now has more than 60,000 members, in grades kindergarten through 12.
While Christian-oriented, AHG is open to girls of other faiths “who agree to live according to the standards of the AHG oath and the AHG creed.”
AHG was first chartered in Hawaii in 2010, serving the Ewa Beach community. It quickly expanded its reach across the entire island with girls from Ewa, Kailua, Waianae, Mililani and Pearl Harbor.
According to Richelle Benson, the coordinator for troop #HI-0001, the group needed to a more central location.
Troops, she said, “must be chartered by a church, parochial school or another ministerial organization like the Knights of Columbus.”
“We are blessed to have found a home at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish,” she said. The 2017-2018 program begins there on Aug. 8.
The Pearl City parish had a well-established Boy Scout program, but nothing for the girls. The pastor Father Pascual Abaya was eager to fill that need.
“I decided to offer our parish because it was a long dream of mine” to have a ministry “specifically intended for girls,” he told the Hawaii Catholic Herald by e-mail.
“Scouting can bring about a lot of good learning and experiences in life,” he said.
“It helps develop skills needed for life and work for the future,” he said. “Scouting can bring about development in the mental, physical and spiritual well-being of a young person.”
Benson listed the six key elements to the AHG program: life skill enhancement, girls leadership opportunities, teamwork and building confidence, character development, social development and spiritual development.
The last element is foundational as a “moral compass,” she said, so girls can learn to find “Biblical truths through everyday experiences.”
The faith-based program teaches girls how to “put ‘legs’ on their faith, giving them confidence to defend their faith and rely on it through tumultuous times,” she said.
The program is already showing success. American Heritage Girl Bella Leonardi won Hawaii’s first AHG “Stars and Stripes” award for her walkthrough rosary garden project at the Benedictine Monastery in Waialua. This multi-faceted award honors girls who epitomize the organization’s oath and creed. It can take a year or more to achieve.
Father Abaya has high hopes for the program, which he sees as an inherent part of youth ministry.
“I hope and pray that our young girls of our parish and other churches will be equipped to learn more values that can truly build a Christian community,” he said, “as they reach out to people for community services.”
Gabriella Munoz is a Georgetown University student on vacation back home on Oahu.
