Thanks to a generous donation from local Girl Scouts, the nearly 600 nurses working at McLaren Greater Lansing have been receiving a sweet surprise this week.
The totes presented to each of them in conjunction with National Nurses Week from May 6 - 12 have included a box of Girl Scout cookies. The cookies, which include Savannah Smiles, Trefoils, Do-Si-Dos, Tagalongs, Thin Mints, S’mores, and Toffee Tastics, were donated to the McLaren Greater Lansing Foundation as part of the Girl Scouts’ annual Hometown Heroes program.
The program gives girls the opportunity to learn philanthropy and community service through the sale of cookies. When a Girl Scout is successful in selling cookies to someone, she will invariably inform the buyer of the opportunity to purchase a box that can be donated to a predetermined organization.
“The girls told us that they wanted to donate cookies to nurses because they really appreciate them,” said Stacy Jenkins, a product program specialist for the Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan council. “There were a lot of personal stories about why the girls chose nurses. One girl’s mom is a nurse so she thought that all mommies were nurses and deserved cookies. Another girl talked about a nurse who was great and kind in the way she treated her when she had a broken leg.”
Deb Leblanc, chief nursing officer at McLaren Greater Lansing, was involved with the Girl Scouts when she was in elementary school. She is delighted to have cookies be part of Nurses Week because distributing them is another way to shine a light on “those who provide care to our patients” in the hospital and in other areas of healthcare.
“It’s an opportunity to celebrate the profession and recognize the work they do,” she said of nurses. “They work extremely hard. They are bright, intelligent, and talented. And they balance so many things on a day-to-day basis between the patients they care for, the families they support, and the team members they work with.”
Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan is one of three councils with their headquarters in the state and encompasses all or parts of 33 counties. Jenkins said there are an estimated 12,000 members in the region, with roughly 2,500 of them living in the Greater Lansing region.
“This was a gift from the girls in the area,” she said. “They chose organizations they wanted to donate to and we worked with them to make that happen.”
The decision about who the Girl Scouts were going to support this year was made in May of last year. That’s when the state’s councils, upon the conclusion of the cookie selling program, surveyed their members about what organizations and areas of work they wanted to support in the coming year.
Knowing that ahead of time enables Girl Scouts to tell people the specific organizations that will benefit from donated cookies, rather than just letting them know their donation will go to a worthy group.
In many states, the Girl Scouts cookie selling program runs from January to March. But in Michigan, it runs longer as it starts in December, when cookies are ordered based on sales projections, and ends in May after all of the previously chosen organizations have received their donations and the state councils again survey their members.
Much of the money made from cookie sales supports traditional Girl Scout programs, while other funds support bigger ticket items such as a backpacking trip in northern Michigan. Jenkins said there is one group of high school freshmen in the area who had set – and met – a particularly high cookie sales goal because they were working toward supporting a service project trip to the Galapagos Islands, which are part of Ecuador.
Goal setting is one of five life skills that the Girl Scouts are trying to teach their members. The others are decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics. Jenkins said each skill is needed to excel at selling cookies.
Leblanc said another “neat thing” about the donation from the Girl Scouts was the way the organization works to empower young girls and young women.
“It really is a great tie-in to our community because Girl Scouts is about helping to grow and build females at a very early age for leadership and professional positions,” she said.
The Girl Scout motto of “Be prepared,” is definitely transferable to nursing. So is the organization’s mission to develop individuals who exude “courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.”
If you would like to make a gift to support a nursing program, or another program, department, or unit at the hospital, please contact McLaren Greater Lansing Foundation at (517) 975-7100 or mglfoundation@mclaren.org, or visit mclaren.org/lansingfoundation.