Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 2, 1993 TAG: 9301010061
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MELANIE S. HATTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
GIRL SCOUTS SEE NO BARRIERS TO LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER
Junior Girl Scout Troop No. 95 gathered before the field trip in a hall of Salem's Our Lady of Perpetual Help and waited excitedly for the last member to arrive.Jessica Stephenson was a few minutes late. "She's here! She's here!" the scouts yelled when she and her father, Max, arrived in the parking lot.
Jessica, still too new to the troop to have her own uniform, waited in the van to save the time it would take to bring in her wheelchair. The 11-year-old girl, who has cerebral palsy, is legally blind and cannot use her hands. She does not speak, but the sounds she makes and her smiles are enough for her fellow scouts to sense that she's happy.
Girl Scout Troop No. 95 could be considered a microcosm of modern American diversity. The members also include a girl from Mexico who is learning English, a scout who uses a walker because of a bone disorder and another with a learning disability.
Jessica is the most outwardly different member of the group, said troop leader Nancy Burns, but the other girls don't seem to care. They met Jessica before they had a chance to form prejudices against people who are different, she added.
That December afternoon the girls were headed to the Festival of Trees in the Dominion Tower to see the ornaments they'd made weeks earlier for the Girl Scout Christmas tree.
"OK," troop leader Burns asked. "Who wants to ride with Jessica?"
Several hands stretched to the ceiling.
After a quick scan of the line, Burns picked two to ride with Jessica and her dad, and three to ride with co-leader Joanne Rankin and volunteer mom, Barbara O'Connell. The remaining three rode with Burns.
The group, sponsored by the Salem church, was formed about two years ago as a Brownie troop. This spring the troop had its "flying up ceremony," where it changed from Brownie status to Girl Scouts. Jessica and Rocio Mendez, who joined this fall, are the newest members.
The troop's diversity was unplanned, said Burns. "It just happened that way. [The girls] had an interest in girl scouting."
Co-leader Rankin said that when she was a child she probably would have been frightened by Jessica. Back then, she recalled, people with mental or physical disabilities were hidden from society. She said she admires the troop's acceptance and said that watching the girls is like looking at things through new eyes.
"It's a second chance to learn," she said.
The troop's attitude reflects the premise of the national organization, said Ellen Christie, spokeswoman for New York-based Girl Scouts of America. "Our big thing is pluralism."
From day one, the organization has opened itself to "girls of all abilities and disabilities and socioeconomic backgrounds." A photograph taken in Georgia in 1914 of the second troop formed includes a black girl and a girl with a crutch, said Christie.
After a couple of wrong turns on the way to Dominion Tower, and the last group's getting separated from the others, the troop finally met on the 21st floor of the downtown Roanoke building.
The fifth tree at the exhibit was the Girl Scouts of America tree sponsored by the Virginia Skyline Council. Its theme was "Scents of Christmas," and the troop had used cloves and red ribbon to decorate polystyrene balls.
"I didn't see mine," said 9-year-old Leah Pollard.
"I saw mine," Rocio said, with a lilt of Mexico in her voice. Her mother had thought it would be a good idea for her to join the scouts, she said, "so I could have fun." And it happened that Troop No. 95 was in her neighborhood.
Hand in hand, Leah and Rocio ran to the next group of trees.
Jessica's assistant, Tina Austin, a Mental Health Services worker, guided Jessica's wheelchair in front of a tall frosted tree. Austin placed her hand under Jessica's chin and gently lifted her head to face the bright tree. Jessica's blue eyes moved slowly from side to side.
"They don't pity her," Austin said of the girls in the troop. "They accept her."
At 4 months old, Jessica acquired a rare virus that affected her heart muscle, explained her mother, Christina Stephenson. "Jessica's heart stopped twice requiring resuscitation," she said. "Her brain was damaged as a consequence."
Although she doesn't speak, Jessica communicates with the tone of her voice. "She makes real loud noises when she's happy," her mother said. They're kind of cooing, happy sounds.
Stephenson thought getting Jessica involved in a Girl Scout troop would be good for her. She knew Burns from her church and aerobics class and talked with her about letting Jessica join. Burns liked the idea.
The first time Jessica attended a scout meeting, the girls introduced themselves and sang their troop song to her. Jessica likes when people talk to her and loves music, Austin said.
During the meetings, Austin sits close to Jessica, holding her hand or rubbing her arm or leg. When the troop made the Christmas ornaments, Austin made the ball and explained to Jessica what she was doing.
"I enjoy it 'cause it gets her out" and exposes her to different situations, Austin said. "She's listening right now." Jessica's eyes moved as she heard the voices around her.
The scouts were curious about Jessica when she joined the troop, Austin said. "They weren't looking to be nosy, they were looking to understand."
Some of the girls admitted it felt awkward when they first met Jessica, but it didn't take long for them to become accustomed to her and think about activities that wouldn't exclude her.
"She's blind and we describe things to her," Girl Scout Mary O'Connell said. "It's fun having different people" in the group, she added.
"Most girls I see are mostly the same, their hair, their age," said Meghan Hochkeppel, 9. "And in our troop I can't find anything we've got the same. Even the twins are different." (Members Rebecca and Melissa Skaar are identical 10-year-old twins.)
Meghan's mother, Kathy, thinks the troop is a good experience for her daughter. Meghan is able to see children who, despite their differences, feel and think the same way she does, her mother said.
But Hochkeppel credits the leaders for the children's viewing of each other as normal youngsters.
"Especially with this age . . . they pick up very well on adult feelings," and if the leaders are accepting, then the girls will be that way, too. In addition, the more diverse a group is at a younger age, the more accepting they are of each other, she added.
Jessica leaned her head back in her chair's headrest.
"She's nice. I like her," Rebecca said. "She's not bossy or real mean, just nice to be around."