Over the holiday break, I watched the playful new Wonka movie, which is a prequel to the iconic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie of 1970s fame. It is a whimsical movie that traces Charlie’s dream of building a chocolate factory as a young man. He had a dream, and no one was going to quash it. In many ways, our Girl Scout journey followed Charlie’s dream.
We had a dream coming out of the pandemic to grow to 5,000 Girls in five years, effectively doubling our membership. We have not wavered from that dream nor did Charlie. Charlie was challenged by many things—a doubting society but, most desperately, by three evil chocolate manufacturers who sought to undermine him before he could get started. We have many challenges as Girl Scouts, including challenges with our cookie supplies last year, high inflation, crime issues impacting our program center, plus staff cuts at our higher headquarters. Yet, we persevered, and our membership team stayed on the dream, hitting double-digit growth in the last two years!
In the end, like any good movie, the forces of evil surround Charlie, and all looks lost, but he believes in his dream, and so do his friends, and after a few good songs, they prevail and dream the reality into place. We see the candy factory in the final seconds of this uplifting film. We are still 1,300 Girl Scouts from our dream coming true, but I hope we have our own good climatic end and 5,000 Girls will be a reality in two years. What The Wonka movie end is so happy and optimistic. We are indeed happy the anti-Charlie forces were defeated. We need his special chocolate in our lives. That is where the idea for this blog came from. As crime is persistent in our communities and negativity is rising on many fronts, don’t we need Girl Scouts more than ever???? I can just see communities cheering more Girl Scouts in their world. It would make a fine ending to a movie. Throw in some Daisies, and you get a standing ovation for sure from the audience.
Where do we go next?!?!—same place Charlie went. Once one dream is realized, you dream another. Charlie realized his dream, and then, in his next movie, he found a successor. When we reach 5,000 Girl Scouts, we, too, will dream another dream. Wonka quite often took out his famous Wonka bar and rubbed it for luck. Girl Scouts don’t have Wonka bars, but we do have Thin Mints—that is our currency of choice, and with Thin Mints, we can dream any dream! Happy New Year, Girl Scouts. Our dream is alive if you Believe!
