A 2026 Girl Scout report reveals the challenges of girlhood and what can be done about it.
By Emily Rodin, for the Community News Service
THETFORD — Standing ashore Lake Abenaki with life vests clipped together were Emelia Metivier and Evie Dickinson. As they waited in line to get a paddleboard, they sang their favorite camp songs.
“Quack-quack yippee-aay and quack-quack yippee-ooh
Get along little duckies, get along real slow
It’s dirty and smelly and really don’t pay
But I’ll be a duck girl ’til the end of my days.”
The two girls were at Camp Farnsworth, an overnight summer camp for Girl Scouts in grades K-12. Established in 1909, the camp aims to serve the community and create leadership opportunities for campers.
Emelia, who just finished fifth grade in New Hampshire, earned a free week at camp after selling 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies this past season. Last week was her and Evie’s first time at a proper sleepaway camp.
“We just met and became friends the day before yesterday,” Evie, an incoming fifth grader from Georgia, Vermont, said. “Nobody, like, is judgmental. And there’s no boys, no cooties!”
Published earlier this month, the Girl Scouts’ annual “State of the Girl” report found that nearly seven in 10 girls ages 5-13 report feeling lonely, with numbers only rising as they mature. Girls consistently identified supportive adults, opportunities for in-person friendships and spaces where they feel accepted as antidotes to loneliness. Camp Farnsworth aims to provide all three.
“We’re trying to offer opportunities to girls that they might not otherwise get. And we’re trying very hard to reach out to all segments of society no matter their financial ability,” said Ginger Kozlowski, communications and public relations manager of the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains.
The country’s “loneliness epidemic” is not a new discovery, but more and more studies have documented serious public health concerns about the lack of social connection.
A 2024 poll from C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Michigan found that one in five parents say their child aged 6-12 years has “no friends or not enough friends.” Furthermore, in an American Psychological Association article published last year, psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge linked increasing loneliness among youth to a shift from a play-based childhood to a phone-based one.
The Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, which serves Vermont and New Hampshire, are trying to buck the trend through troop activities and programs such as a mental health summit, which features guest speakers and workshops. Scouts can also earn a mental health patch.
“I think a lot of people still think we’re just cookies and crafts, and it’s so much more than that,” Kozlowski said.
Building strong connections between peers and adults is a significant part of Camp Farnsworth. Those relationships begin with one simple rule: no electronics. Instead, campers fill their days with canoeing, hiking, cooking and conversing.
“You can always do a self-imposed social media break, but it’s much easier when you physically cannot access the device,” said camper Caileigh Dennis, 15, who will become a counselor in training next year. “If there’s something we really, really need to know, we can bother our counselor.”
Leslie Belanger, Caileigh’s counselor, laughed as she recalled a camper asking who had won the Spain v. Portugal World Cup match.
Back at Lake Abenaki, Emelia and Evie finally reached the front of the paddleboard line. Together, they carried the board to the end of the dock, giggling as they set off.
Emily Rodin is an intern for UVM’s Community News Service through Report for America’s Local News Internship Program.