Excerpt from Naugatuck Daily News – Saturday, August 31, 1946
World War II - History Edition

Girl Scout Program Increased With War Work Undertaken

The Girl Scout movement in Naugatuck grew during the war years from two troops with between 40 and 50 girls, to 10 troops and three Brownie Packs with a membership of more than 350. The first troops were at the Congregational church under the leadership of Miss Marjorie Squires and at St. Michael's Episcopal church, Miss Mildred Brown, leader.

One of the first projects started was the making of paper bed-side bags for the Waterbury hospital. Several thousand were made by St. Michael’s troop. Later there were book drives, and the girls helped gather the books and spent many busy hours at the library sorting, mending and tying them up. When the town had a special War Stamp and Bond drive, the girls were stationed in the stores to sell them after school and on Saturday.

All this time, in their meetings and in extra meetings, the girls were working on First Aid and Home Nursing badges. Many of the girls who were old enough to take the regular Junior Red Cross courses earned badges by taking these courses. They learned how to prepare tasty indoor meals with the food that was available. Instead of saying, “We can’t have a picnic because there are no hot dogs” something was forgotten. They found many other foods for their picnics and week-ends at camp.

The scout meetings these days were often upset with three or four and even a whole neighborhood group of girls coming in and asking and pleading with the leaders to let them become scouts too. Mrs. Philip Rice and Mrs. Armstrong Durr went to work and found leaders and meeting places for new troops. When Mrs. Rice left town, Mrs. Norman Wood took over and more troops were formed until most of the girls in town had opportunity to become Scouts. As scouting is still growing, more leaders are needed to keep up with the demand.