Do Girl Scout Cookie Sales Pay For Abortions?

The link between Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood has been a direct connection in my mind for years. Recently, my mom friends have started posting photos of their adorable little girls on my Facebook page with pleas to buy the cookies they peddle. Also, along with these pleas, has come a link to this SNOPES article which claims that the rumor stating a link between GS cookies and Planned Parenthood is FALSE.

Now, I generally think of SNOPES as pretty good at investigative journalism and give them the benefit of the doubt on their due diligence. But, this article does not demonstrate good investigative journalism. The search is on for the truth, because I don't want to keep spreading a rumor that isn't true.

I think SNOPES dropped the ball on this issue because they only asked one person one question. The GSUSA rep who gets paid to make this organization look good in the public's eye, said "no." Now, to be fair, she only addressed this claim:

Some or all of the proceeds of Girl Scout Cookies are disbursed to Planned Parenthood.

So, on this claim alone, the Snopes writer finds the premise to be false. But, I have to wonder if this is like Planned Parenthood's claim that no federal dollars pay for abortions? Because as we all know, receiving a large chunk of cash for one part of your business frees up your other funds for the other parts. So, where does cookie money go?

CBS asked one Minnesota council this question and got this answer. In the response, twenty percent (after paying for cookies to be baked and distributed of course) goes to the local troop. The rest is used for camps, administration, etc. Twelve percent goes to leadership programming. So, if the only question we ask is this: When I buy a box of Girl Scout cookies, will that money be used to directly pay for someone's child to be aborted? The answer is no. Is this enough to settle my conscience? The answer is also no.

I think we need to ask more questions. What is included in leadership programming? Does it include paying for speakers who promote Planned Parenthood? Does it help pay for the awards they give out, like honoring the Planned Parenthood CEO as a Woman of Distinction and presenting her as a role model for the next generation of girls?

The girlscouts.org website claims that the national council makes money from every box sold through licensing fees. This is not part of the $4 you pay to that little girl, rather it is based on the total number of boxes sold. So, if the only question we ask is will the national organization of GSUSA get money because I buy this box of cookies? The answer is yes. Yes, they will. They will receive funds from every box sold.

The writer of the Snopes article, and others, claim that cookie-cotts" organized by pro-life groups begin from false rumors. However, the Waco, Texas cookie-cott of 2014 had specific roots in the partnership between their local council and Planned Parenthood. The two organizations partnered to offer a sex education program for girls called Nobody's Fool that included the Girl Scout logo in their advertising materials and contained material on masturbation, birth control, homosexuality and abortion that many parents called graphic and some claimed that the material being taught was in opposition to their family values. These materials are in opposition to my family values too.

Some pro-life groups are concerned about not only the direct financial links, but all the associations. Planned Parenthood is just one of the global organizations that promote or provide abortions.

The website girlscouts.org explains their relationship with the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts like this: "Every Girl Scout and Girl Guide organization is a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts - and each Member Organization, including Girl Scouts of the USA, pays dues. WAGGGS operates in much the same way as the United Nations: Each Member Organization pays dues based on the size of its membership and per capita income of the country in which the organization resides." and explains the finances like this: "The national funds that GSUSA sends to WAGGGS come solely from investment income."

Anna Maria Chavez, CEO of GSUSA says her favorite quote is "Tell me who you hang out with and I'll tell you who you are."

If we take her advice, we might wonder about the GSUSA membership in WAGGGS - which they pay over $1 million dollars in membership dues to. Which according to the GS website, these dues are based directly on the number of girls who pay membership dues to GSUSA. Pro-life parents did wonder in 2013 when WAGGGS participated in a worldwide conference with the following partners: Featured speakers: late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart, philosopher and supporter of infanticide and euthanasia Peter Singer, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; breakout sessions titled "Outing and Addressing Abortion Stigma" and "Why I Perform Abortions." Exhibitors included abortion and population control advocates such as Amnesty International, Guttmacher Institute, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Marie Stopes International, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, United Nations Population Fund and WAGGGS.

Pro-life parents should be wondering what their girls are gaining from their membership in GSUSA when the organization is used to honor Wendy Davis as "Incredible Woman of the Year," after what ABC News called her "marathon filibuster against abortion restrictions" in Texas.

If we ask just one question: Will the $4 I give you to purchase this box of cookies be used to kill babies? the answer will be a resounding no. But, the truth lies deeper. The answer is more like, no, not really, but it might pay for pro-abortion speakers to come and teach us Planned Parenthood curriculum. The national organization will receive licensing fees for the sale of this box you are purchasing and that organization will pay membership fees to a worldwide organization that will be promoting abortion around the world. So, if you would like to subtly support abortion, while pretending you don't, then yes, your purchase will do that.

Final Personal Note: I would not consider this to be investigative journalism either. But, the beginning of an investigation is to ask more than one question. You could easily find much more information and documentation of the link between these organizations with a little time.

I was convinced to pull my girls from Scouting when we received a new Junior book that stated in parentheses after the phrase "On my honor I will try to serve God and my country..." a side note claiming the word 'God' could be replaced by any appropriate word that represented the girls faith.

It was a year or so later that we learned that they CEO of PP had been honored by the Girl Scouts and knew that we were right to pull out.

I have not questioned this decision since then, until a mom whose daughter is selling cookies posted the Snopes link. I thought I should revisit the issue to see if things had changed. If anything, it is worse.

I still believe that the links between Girl Scouts and the abortion industry are too many to ignore. I'm not asking you to boycott your local girls or start yelling at them about abortion when they ask, but do a little digging for yourself and let your conscience decide.

Train Cake DIY How to make a simple train cake

With 8 kids, there's always a birthday coming up. We only do birthday parties on the 5th, 10th and 15th birthdays, but I try to make a special cake for every birthday.

It would seem like I would be pretty good at cake-making and decorating by now, but no.

So, I'm always looking for simple, cute cakes for birthdays. Here's an idea for a train theme that we just used for Noah's 7th birthday.

It starts with two dozen cupcakes.

Then, I laid them out in an oval track shape with a seven in the middle.

I sprayed the tops with whip cream - easier and faster than trying to frost them. Also, it's a January birthday, so the snow look fits with the theme.

Then, I laid Kit Kat "tracks" around the oval and on the center pieces.

Last, I laid the extra track pieces around the edges, added some decorations like trees, signs and train cars. Then, I presented it to the very pleased birthday boy.

Family stick figure auto decals on a budget

I have always loved the cute little sticker "stick" people on the backs of automobiles. I have read articles like this one about the dangers of these decals and the information that they might provide to criminals about my family. But, I still wanted them.

Over the past few years, I have looked for them in stores and searched them out on websites, but they are always 5-6 dollars per figure plus shipping and I could never quite decide which ones I liked the best. At that price, it seemed like such a permanent decision.

But, I kept wanting them.

So, for my Sunday afternoon relaxing creative activity I decided to make some.

Sketches

First, I made sketches of what I wanted the people to look like.

I traced one of the magnetic sheets (2 for $2.99 at Walmart in the craft section) onto a piece of printer paper, and fit the pencil drawings inside that space.

Then, I colored in my little people. My husband the pastor, and me with my Higher Things t-shirt, and my oldest daughter with pink hair. She doesn't actually have pink hair, but it goes well with her personality, so there it is.

 I used permanent markers that we already owned, so I didn't figure these into the cost, although you would if you were planning this activity for a group or if you don't already use giant packs of multi-colored permanent markers for a million other projects. (probably less than $20 for all sorts of colors and then they would have lots of ink left in them when you finished this small project)

Next, I cut out the rectangle.

Then, I peeled the backing off of the peel and stick magnet and laid the rectangle of paper on top of the sticky side.

I cut out a piece of laminate to fit over the paper.
This is important because I plan to stick these on
the outside of the van, so just paper would get wet
and the ink would run and they would not last.

DISCLAIMER: I've never done anything like this before, so it's all guesswork. 

I'm just hoping it works. A huge roll of laminate cost us $5.78 and I used about 6 inches of it. We bought it for another project and having it here is what actually gave me the idea to do this. But, if you were planning this activity for a group, you would need to calculate this cost also.

I smoothed out the laminate and then started cutting out each person.

But, then, I decided to cut out just the rectangle around the figures. This works for me because our van is white. I may change my mind later, but I think it will look okay and the greater surface area will help them stay put.

This was so easy and so much fun. I think I am going to pick up some more of the magnet sheet and make some "paper" dolls and other objects for my 3 year old to play with on the refrigerator.

Five Steps to a Clean Bedroom

I found a short list for cleaning kids rooms that I thought was great. I tweaked it to fit our family needs and have the following 5 STEPS to a clean room posted on my daughter's bedroom wall. She uses it nearly every day to help her keep her room tidy.

It's simple, fast and even little kids can do it.

So, here it is:


Step 1. Push everything off the bed onto the floor and make the bed. 

Making the bed can be as simple as laying a blanket over the top of it and calling it good. Military corners on sheets and all that is not what we're going for here. Just presentable.

Step 2. Put laundry on bed.

This might seem counter-intuitive since you just made the bed, but it might be the only clean spot in the room and this is about sorting the clothing, towels and such from the rest of the stuff on the floor. So, just make a big pile of everything that would be considered laundry on top of the bed.

Step 3. Put toys in bins/on shelves.

If your kids don't have this, get it. Bins don't have to be fancy or labeled, just bins. We do bins on book shelves or dresser drawers for special items. Again, this isn't an organizing adventure, so put away the label maker. This is simply getting everything they care about up and off the floor and into some kind of container for storage.

Step 4. Throw away trash/Vacuum floor.

There always seems to be garbage on the floor, even if we just vacuumed yesterday. But, if you don't have that issue, then you can just throw out any trash that might have found its way into the room, and call it good. I think running the vacuum over the center gives it a more finished look.

Step 5. Sort laundry.

Remember that pile of laundry on the bed? Now is the time to tackle that. Clean stuff gets put away, dirty stuff goes in the hamper. You, parent, can decide what 'put away' means. For some, it might just be throwing it all in a laundry basket, or shoving it in a drawer - we have labeled bins on shelves for this too, so all the shirts go in one, pants in another and so on. Dirty clothes go in a hamper, and older kids can take that hamper all the way to the laundry room if you want them too.


That's it. Done. Not perfect, but tidy and presentable.

Good enough.

Following Your Kid's Lead

I'm learning to follow my kids lead. They are creative and fun and smart and they have great ideas.

The 17 year old wants to be a Broadway star! Here's her Facebook page.
As her mom, and her guidance counselor it's my job over this next year to make sure that she builds a resume that will boost her chances of getting into the college of her choice and accepted into their musical theater program.

As a small private school, it is difficult to offer some of the things that might look good on that application. Things like drama club, band & orchestra, dance, choir, etc.
So, we are trying to be creative.

The 15 year old wants to work in computers. He's not sure what, but maybe building them, repairing them, etc. Also, hard to create a technical lab on our school's itty bitty budget.

The 9 year old wants to be famous on YouTube. He's convinced he can sit around playing Minecraft, recording himself talking about it and get paid for it. I would laugh, but there are people actually doing it, so who am I to tell him he can't?
But, neither of us has any idea how to begin.

So, as the first semester of our homeschool year is nearing it's close, I'm pondering the curriculum and lesson plans for semester #2. What can we do differently to help these children work toward their goals while still meeting my idea of "schoolwork"?

I'm following their lead.

We now have a family YouTube page.
It's called 8 Kids Playing, a perfect name for our little actors and actresses, musicians and gamers.

AND, the kids are working on starting a newsletter. THE JOHNSON JOURNAL!

They are learning writing, business planning, and computer skills all at the same time. But, the part I like the best is the TEAMWORK because it was all their idea.