Food fest and 'SWAP' trading highlight annual Monroe Girl Scout World Thinking Day

CENTRAL VALLEY - Over 375 Girls Scouts representing the Cadette, Junior, Brownie and Daisy levels participated in World Thinking Day festivities, one of the Monroe Girl Scout community’s largest annual events this past Saturday at the Monroe-Woodbury Middle School. This year’s theme was ““Empowering Girls will Change the World,” and was organized by the girls and leaders of Brownie Troop 301 and Daisy Troop 609. Thirty-nine troops took part in the event, taking their selected countries of choice and preparing an educational board about that nation for others to view. They also prepared food native to that country for taste-testing, which makes the event a large international community food festival as well. With “passports” in hand, the girls, ranging in age from five to 15, “visited” each country and had their passports marked with a stamp of a symbol representing that country. They also took with them a souvenir, or “SWAP,” of their “visit” to that country. SWAPs are small giveaways representing a troop’s chosen country for others. The range of countries represented varied from places like England, Italy and Egypt to perhaps less-traveled places like Bahrain, Cuba and the Czech Republic.