LAKE WORTH, Fla. — Proud of their patches.
The Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida are on a major mission to learn about inclusion and diversity.
Leaders in the organization said the goal is to empower its members to embrace each other's differences.
Ella Evans loves to help.
"Seeing the smiles on kids' faces," Evans said. "You get to make the world a better place."
Evans started the Girl Scouts program in kindergarten, and now at 11 years old, she’s seen the world not at its best.
"Kids made comments like, if Martin Luther King never said his speech, you would never be at this school, and it really made me feel bad," Evans said.
"So, to hear a girl in our organization having gone through that, it does break your heart a little bit," said Destiny Oakley, a girl experience manager with the Girl Scouts.
Conversations around racial injustice this summer and stories like Ella’s inspired her team to create a new patch program.
"They get to explore topics such as race, ethnicity, religion, spirituality, socioeconomic class, gender, sexuality, disability. Kind of all those identities we hold that make us different," Oakley said.
The former Girl Scout said the virtual experience has workshops for girls K-12.
"We’re doing storytime sessions for the younger girls, so they learn these topics through a storytime reading and a brief Q&A and for our older girls, we get into a little deeper of discussion," Oakley said.
It's a patch Ella can’t wait to wear.
"I’m so excited that this started because I want everybody to know that everybody should be treated fairly," Evans said.
