Cheryl Bobchak, age 12, of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, for her question:
What are the Camp Fire Girls?
Every girl has a pretty good idea of what sort of a woman she wants to be. Suppose you plan to be a nurse or a teacher or to enjoy some other rewarding career. Suppose your plans include a home a home where a mature woman, yourself, knows how to do things smoothly. If any of these items are in your dreams, then a Camp Fire Girls group is just the thing for you.
As soon as you know what this is about, you will want to run, not walk, over and enroll yourself. It is the best treat in the world for girls between the ages of seven and 17. You may be fat or thin, blonde or brunette or tinted with any color of the rainbow. You don't have to be a whiz at math and your chances are not hurt by low bracket grades. You can be as rich as all get out or as poor as a mouse. Whatever you think is wrong with you does not count a fig. If you want to join the Camp Fire Girls you certainly may do so. And, according to Andy, any girl in her right mind would want to join as soon as possible.
There are many Camp Fire Girls groups in the United States. Chances are, you can find your local group in the telephone book. You can call up for information or just march yourself over there. If you have no local group, then write to Camp Fire Girls Headquarters, 65 Worth Street, New York, N.Y. 10013. You will need at least six girl friends to get going and starting a new group is just about the most exciting thing you will ever do.
The Camp Fire emblem is two crossed logs below a blazing flame. This suggests outdoor activities like camping in the wilds. True, the Camp Fire Girls do a lot of this. And their organization knows more about the outdoors than you could imagine, more fascinating activities and things to do, more ways to cope safely with outdoor hazards. Naturally our American Indians knew a lot about this. Well, Luther and Charlotte Gulich, who started the Camp Fire Girls way back in 1910, learned from the Indians. A new member soon learns that many Indian symbols and stories, crafts and skills are woven into the programs.
Such a program is much too good to be left outdoors. So naturally it extends right into a girl's home and family life. She gets a chance to learn the comfortable old homemaking skills how to perform them smoothly and expertly. She can select from a wide variety of hobbies, field trips and practical sciences courses. She can learn a few tricks about nursing and typing or just about anything else she needs to know. The nicest thing is that you can choose the things that suit you. The group instructor encourages a girl to select the games and hobbies,. courses and other activities that suit her.. In this way she is treated as if she were the only girl in the world. Of course, no other girl is exactly like her and the Camp Fire Girls is just the thing to help her to be her very own self.
There is no room to list all the fabulous projects. Besides it is much better to discover them for yourself. The youngest group of the Camp Fire Girls art the Blue Birds, ages seven and eight. The oldest group is the Horizon Club, ages 13 to 17. The Horizon girls, naturally, look ahead to happy womanhood. But sometimes they visit the younger groups, maybe just to say Wohelo, the Camp Fire Girls Hello. That Friendly Wo hee lo is made up from the words work health love.