Helping Girl Scouts is Highlander's passion.
Original article published in Edwardsville Intelligencer on 1/20/23
Community service comes naturally to Amanda Highlander, and when she had a chance to serve the Girl Scouts a few years ago, it was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.
Highlander, an attorney and partner at Mitchell Highlander, LLC in Maryville, is the Second Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois and has been serving since 2020.
Highlander lives in Edwardsville with her husband, Allen Injijian, and their daughters. Gwendolyn Inlander, 8, is a Brownie and Rosalie Inlander 6, is a Daisy.
“A now former board member and colleague, John McCracken, approached me about serving on the board as his term on was ending,” Highlander explained.
“I previously served on the board of the Metro East Humane Society (including a stint as president). I enjoy being engaging in our community and seeing it thrive. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to give back, especially given the fact that my oldest daughter was starting her Girl Scouts journey at the time.”
Highlander noted that Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois serves 40 counties, 6,156 girl members and 2,938 adult members.
“I’ve served as an executive board member and I’m now the second vice chair,” said Highlander, whose law partner, Jamie Mitchell, is a Daisy Troop leader in O'Fallon. “I attend the board meetings and sit on or chair a number of committees.
“The board’s primary focus is the governance of the organization. We have several committees, each focusing on areas of greatest significance, including finance, development, bylaws, and property. We own two major properties – our headquarters in Glen Carbon, and Camp Torqua, located on the outskirts of Edwardsville. It’s a great camp and we are exploring way to improve it.”
When Highlander started on the board, it was just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the board decided to sell several properties of its long-held camps.
“It was a difficult decision for the board and the volunteers, but financially, it was a move that needed to be made for the council,” Highlander said. “We’re in the girl business—not in the property management business.
“Camp Butterfly was a property in Missouri that had been bequeathed to us years ago, and it’s an impressive piece of land. Unfortunately, it was not financially feasible for us to manage it. We had to bring the focus back on the girls as opposed to trying to figure out how to manage a number of properties scattered across the region.”
On a national and local level, the Girl Scouts have made numerous changes in their operational strategy, many of them directly related to the pandemic and the sales of their signature Girl Scout Cookies.
“Cookie season has just begun, so anyone who is looking for cookies should ask around their neighborhood. There are plenty of eager Girl Scouts who will be happy to get boxes into hungry hands,” Highlander said.
“Along with everyone else, there was a lot of fear at first, but then there was a moment of ‘We’re Girl Scouts; we can do this.’ All in-person meetings had to stop, but the troop leaders were great. They figured out Zoom and had their meetings. It wasn’t ideal, but we got through it.”
While the Zoom meetings helped the Girl Scouts to connect during the pandemic, Highlander welcomes the return of face-to-face Girl Scout Cookie sales as a learning tool.
“Part of cookie sales is learning entrepreneurial skills, and that’s something that is built in at every level of the Girl Scout experience,” Highlander said. “Girls are not selling cookies to get rewards; they are selling to learn life skills and how cookies sales benefit their troop and the entire organization.”
The goal for Highlander’s oldest daughter’s troop was to raise enough money for them to go horseback riding, and they were able to do it. “They did that through their cookie sales and when for 1st and 2nd graders, that was the epitome of the Girl Scout experience,” Highlander said.
“Most people still identify Girl Scouts with those delicious cookies, but we’ve moved Girl Scouts into the 21st century. There are still the old Girl Scout traditions of going to camp, learning how to build a fire and roasting smores, but there is so much more.
“There are also STEM-focused camps and different themed camps that the girls enjoy, particularly throughout the summer. Those camps range from two days to a week for overnight camps.”
The goal for Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois, meanwhile, is to find new ways to enhance the Girl Scout experience.
“We want to make sure that we have systems and processes in place that allow troop leaders and service unit leaders to excel at whatever it is that they want to do,” Highlander said. “The sale of Camp Butterfly was lucrative for our council in a way that none of us had anticipated, which offered us a unique opportunity to provide new experiences for our Girl Scouts.
“We put that money into the Girl Scout Experience Fund, which allows our Scouts to come to Council with ideas of what they could do that isn’t necessarily with their troop or through a Council-sponsored activity and have it funded. Such experiences include resident camp and horseback riding and even travel destinations as the girls get older.”
Some travel experiences include Space Camp, the home of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of Girl Scouts of America in Savanah, Georgia, and the Girl Scout Convention in Walt Disney World.
“There are international trips as the girls get older and Girl Scouts of the USA is wonderful at coordinating the travel experiences for these girls,” Highlander said. “It’s done independently of their families, though there are chaperones. However, many of these experiences are had by these girls on their own, and it’s empowering for them.
“The Girl Scout Experience Fund is money that both individuals and troops can request to help with the expense of these experiences, and they have that opportunity once a year. There are strict guidelines for receiving these funds, but it’s an invaluable way for our council to offer opportunities that that the girls want and that will advance our mission of building girls of courage, confidence, and character.
“In the near future, we have hopes of partnering with local and even national businesses who would want to support us. We would love to improve Camp Torqua to add a water feature and make it the type of camp that girls will flock to.”
Written By Scott Marion
Scott Marion is a feature reporter for the Intelligencer. A longtime sportswriter, he has worked for the Intelligencer since December 2013. He is a graduate of Brentwood High School and the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
January 25, 2023
