It’s as sure a sign of spring as potholes and playoff hockey: local Girl Guides are out in the community selling cookies.
This Saturday and Sunday the Guides will be at Safeway in Moose Jaw selling their cookies. They will also be out in the community selling cookies to raise funds for Guide activities throughout the year. Sales last until the end of April.
“If they know a girl that is in guiding they can contact them, or contact any of us leaders and also on our Facebook. If they message us on our Facebook page, someone will come out and sell cookies to them,” said Debbie Zumstein, co-commissioner and leader for the Salton District Girl Guides. Anyone interested in buying cookies can also contact Zumstein at 306-631-9342.
The local Girl Guides numbers are continuing to grow in recent years. There are 78 girls registered locally this year. They have their district camp coming up in June at Lumsden Beach.
“Our district camp includes Craik, Riverhurst and Gravelbourg. So we’ll have lots of girls at that. It’s all the way from our Sparks (ages 5-6) up to our Rangers (ages 15-17),” Zumstein said.
The Guides also had some unexpected visitors at their Monday meeting when they ended up calling 911 and had a visit from the Moose Jaw Fire Department.
“We had a little excitement at our meeting. They smelled rotten eggs in the building, so they had to call 911 because they suspected a gas leak,” Zumstein said. “It was all cleared. There was nothing.”
First aid and emergency response is part of the Guide program, so it was good for the Guides to see the Fire Department’s response.
The regional district is named after Reverend Dr. G.F. Salton who began the local Guides chapter at Zion Church in 1910. That gives it the distinction of being the oldest Guide group in the country, though St. Catherine’s, Ont.’s guides registered their group with the headquarters in England first to officially be the first Canadian Guide Company.
