A Missouri Girl Scout troop that made bracelets to raise funds for children in Gaza was ordered to stop and threatened with legal action by regional scout leaders.
Missouri Girl Scout leaders threatened legal action against a troop that made bracelets to raise funds for starving children in Gaza, provoking outrage and ridicule from the girls’ supporters and advocates for people trapped in the Palestinian territory by the latest humanitarian crisis.
Girl Scouts of the USA said its eastern Missouri chapter had only been following fundraising rules, but that it was “disappointed and disheartened by the tone” of the communication with the troop in St. Louis.
“What do you think a group of 10-year-old girls would want to do if they felt helpless?” Abuhamdeh asked during a Zoom meeting promoted by Ceasefire for Kids, which advocates for children in Gaza. “They would want to help. How do they want to help? They want to make bracelets. They’re 10 years old. That’s what they felt like they could do.”
Link to the bracelets
**** Please note they are sold out at the moment, but will be making more soon.
Let's just assume for a moment, just for the sake of argument, that Hamas is so dangerous that it needs to be completely rooted out of Gaza and destroyed with a massive amount of force. Let's even assume that every able-bodied Gazan adult is a member of Hamas.
These girls are trying to feed starving children.
Once again, we are expected to believe that children are extremely dangerous Hamas fighters.
Sounds like the issue was that the girls were using the GSA name and logo without permission and without following the formalities that a 501(c)(3) must follow, and the IRS could theoretically revoke GSA's status over it. Seems pretty unlikely that this small fundraiser would trigger such a harsh response from the IRS.
Or, if this has anything to do with money raised by selling cookies, it could be catastrophic for GSA. The cookie money has to go toward supporting GSA's primary charitable endeavors, educating and enriching girls in America or whatever their mission statement is. If cookie money starts being used to fund something else, the IRS can treat it the cookie money as "unrelated business income," and start taxing it, and also the cookie enterprise would be subject to labor laws, which I think would probably be the end of GSA, given their dependence on unpaid child labor.
The Girl Scout Law
I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place,
and be a sister to every Girl Scout
Caring for starving children is the most principled thing by the principles of the organization. Anybody who has targeted them for their activities shows that they are in direct contradiction to about everything the girl scouts stand for.
The cynic in me agrees, but in this case I'm certain this, in combination with the statement above to "respect yourself and others" means authority like parents, teachers, & troop leaders.
Respect also doesn't imply follow, and in either case as 10 year olds this is good advice.
Isn't it terrible how adults act. Threatening legal action against this troop for trying to do something to help. That's just sickening. Thank god there are people in the world who actually care about what's going on with the horrific genocide in the middle east.