{"id":11835,"date":"2020-02-03T09:53:57","date_gmt":"2020-02-03T14:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/?p=11835"},"modified":"2020-02-03T09:53:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T14:53:57","slug":"girl-scout-troops-come-to-greenville-through-the-efforts-of-mpa-alumni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/2020\/02\/03\/girl-scout-troops-come-to-greenville-through-the-efforts-of-mpa-alumni\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl Scout Troops Come to Greenville Through the Efforts of MPA Alumni"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"\"$ <\/a>One year ago, there were no Girl Scout troops in Greenville, a densely populated, high need community a few miles south of the Saint Peter\u2019s University campus. That\u2019s not unusual for underserved urban communities, where everything from the traditional troop model that relies on parent volunteers to membership fees prevents girls from participating in a program that has shaped millions of American women\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

Today, the picture is quite different in Greenville. More than 130 girls from seven local schools have enrolled in the Girl Scouts. Funding for dues and uniforms has been secured, along with troop leaders, and a model for Girl Scout outreach has emerged that has the potential to be replicated in other urban communities.<\/p>\n

The catalyst for all this progress is a trio of resourceful and determined Saint Peter\u2019s graduate students who made \u201cGirl Scouts in Greenville: It Takes a Village\u201d their capstone project to complete their Master of Public Administration (MPA) degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cStart small. Think big,\u201d is how Philip Plotch, Ph.D., associate professor and director of the MPA program, urges students to approach the capstone project. \u201cThe idea is to work on a local problem,\u201d he explained. \u201cStudents can\u2019t solve homelessness in the United States, but they may be able to impact homelessness in Journal Square. If you solve local problems, you create a model for others to emulate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Devan Tierney \u201919 knew she wanted to bolster opportunities for girl empowerment. At the time of the capstone project, she was development and communications coordinator at WomenRising Inc., a nonprofit in Jersey City that assists women and their families to achieve self-sufficiency. \u201cThe Girl Scouts have an amazing mission and they need to be in Jersey City,\u201d said Tierney, who was joined on the project by Henriette Diene \u201919 and Talah Hughes \u201917, \u201919.<\/p>\n

Once the team researched and identified the challenges in creating and sustaining Girl Scout troops, they began to work the problem from different angles. An initial proposal focused on training college students to fill the troop leader void, but the MPA students determined it wasn\u2019t viable in Greenville due to issues of logistics and liabilities. The team pressed on. They wrangled a meeting with Natasha Hemmings, president and CEO of Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey (GSHNJ), engaged with public and charter school principals and conducted extensive, on the-ground outreach to families. $\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

A key turning point came when the MPA team met Elnardo Webster, Ed.D. \u201969, project director of Saint Peter\u2019s 21st Century CCLC Institute of Excellence, an afterschool initiative in collaboration with President Barack Obama Elementary School (P.S. 34) in Jersey City. He provided valuable guidance and committed funding for 25 girls and 21st Century staff members to function as troop leaders.<\/p>\n

The MPA students\u2019 efforts also yielded additional teachers and parents to potentially lead troops at participating schools. In fact, with the help of a teacher and two family members, Tierney and Diene began troop meetings at the President Barack Obama Elementary School last spring.<\/p>\n

Diene lives in the neighborhood and often bumps into Greenville\u2019s newest Girl Scouts. \u201cThis is a sustainable plan we\u2019ve created,\u201d said the MPA candidate, who will graduate from Saint Peter\u2019s in December. The experience also taught Diene skills she hopes to use in grassroots organizing and community development. \u201cI found out that I don\u2019t shy away from challenge and I don\u2019t take \u2018no\u2019 for an answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes, who lives in Beacon, N.Y., said one of the project\u2019s greatest outcomes was the relationship it created between Dr. Webster and the Girl Scouts Emerging Markets Team, an initiative to grow scouting in communities where the organization is underrepresented. The partnership has the potential to expand the volunteer pool in Jersey City exponentially and bring 300 to 400 more Girl Scouts into the leadership program.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaking that connection was the grand finale,\u201d said Hughes, a grants assistant at Cornerstone Family Healthcare, a nonprofit primary and preventative health provider. \u201cThat gave the project a sense of accountability and sustainability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tierney, who has been promoted since earning her MPA, said growing Girl Scout troops in Greenville is now under the purview of the Emerging Markets Team. \u201cWe hope the work that was started progresses into the school year and future,\u201d she said. \u201cIt really does take a village.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their professor is suitably impressed. \u201cThis was an amazing accomplishment on the part of these students,\u201d said Dr. Plotch. \u201cThey are not willing to give up. And their idealism helped them do something that others couldn\u2019t get done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One year ago, there were no Girl Scout troops in Greenville, a densely populated, high need community a few miles south of the Saint Peter\u2019s University campus. That\u2019s not unusual for underserved urban communities, where everything from the traditional troop model that relies on parent volunteers to membership fees prevents girls from participating in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11837,"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11835\/revisions\/11837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huangshizhaopin.com\/academics\/graduate-programs\/master-of-public-administration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}