Sisters is home to a strong girls scout program

Sisters Girl Scouts are about 50 members strong. Girls ranging from five- and six-year-old Daisy Scouts through high school girls participate in the Sisters program.

Evelyn Brush is the guiding force behind Sisters Girl Scouts activities.

Girl Scouts is an organization dedicated solely to girls with the goal of building in girls character and skills for success in an accepting and nurturing environment.

Central Oregon's regional girl scouts manager Peggy Munday said, "Sisters is remarkable. Evelyn has just done tremendous things out here for the girls in the Sisters area."

Brush oversees all activities of all troops in the Sisters area.

"They do the most incredible events out here," Munday said. "I am sure that is why she has so many girls. She does so many fun things."

Early in December, Munday came to Sisters to participate in one of Brush's fudge-making events. Middle school girls were making fudge at the Sisters Public Library to distribute to friends and community leaders of their choice to express their appreciation for service to the community.

Brush explained the educational element.

"We are learning about science, how fudge goes from a solid to liquid and back to a solid," Brush said.

She explained that the day's activities were for middle school girls from fourth to eighth grade who could bring a friend.

Brush said, "We made three kinds of fudge; chocolate; peanut butter; and now we are making a green mint fudge."

The girls use the fudge they make as gifts, although Brush reminded them, "We always give some to the librarian for using their facility."

Brush said that the project incorporates a part of the girls' cooking badge as well as incorporating a part of their science learning.

More importantly she says, "It gives them an activity to socialize. Middle school is very stratified; fifth and sixth don't associate with seventh and eighth. And this gives them all a chance for fifth through eighth to socialize."

Brush explained, "This age range incorporates two different programs, the junior girl scouts and the cadet girl scouts." Junior girl scouts are fourth, fifth and sixth graders, and the cadet scouts are seventh, eighth and ninth graders.

"This mixes again so that the juniors get to know some of the cadets before they prepare to bridge to the next level in another year," Brush said.

The fudge-making event is part of a community service project.

Brush also hosted an afternoon at the elementary school when scouts as young as age five all the way up to sixth graders gathered to make ornaments. Brush said that some of the ornaments were set aside to send to the Veterans Administration hospital. She added that the third grade troop wanted to send theirs over to the military.

"And they have a connection - either Iraq or Afghanistan, " she said.

For her younger Daisy Scouts, Brush organized a Christmas tea on December 14. Girls from five years old through first grade came together for an event that builds character and friendship.

Munday added that Brush does a huge mother-daughter tea in the spring. "What is cool about Evelyn," said Munday, "is that she invites all the Central Oregon kids to come to Sisters. It's really neat; she includes everybody, Bend, Redmond, La Pine."

Each year the tea is held in May after Easter. Brush holds it at Sisters Community Church, because it's the largest room in town. It is a mother-daughter event and about 150 attend. Every mother and daughter team brings a dozen cookies for a cookie exchange; then, they do crafts together as mother and daughter, and finally they enjoy tea and good conversation,

Any parent interested in serving as a volunteer in the Sisters Girl Scouts program or enrolling her child in the program should contact Brush at 549-2066.