#ShareTheLight, WorldWide Virtual Campfire Sing-Along April 18, 2020

Aloha Girl Scouts and Girl Guides,

Greetings and prayers of Aloha from the island of Maui to all of our Girl Scout and Girl Guiding Sisters and supporters around the world during this time of uncertainty and for some, despair.  When times get tough, we naturally turn to the arts for comfort, understanding and connection. I am excited to share with you 2 great music opportunities to help make your quarantine time a little brighter for you and your girls!

#1. Please join us in #ShareTheLight, a free global ZOOM event, inspired and designed just for us during this period, an event to renew and remember our deep interconnections with one another through singing together! On April 18, 2020, all 5 World Centers plus yours truly will come together online to share our songs and stories along with other singers and speakers from Tasmania, Peru, Ghana,  Switzerland, Maui, Australia, Venezuela, India, UK, Italy and all across the US! For your time zone, please join us and

#2. "Download Free Songs, Now - April 30 We’re offering free downloads of every song in our online music collection all month long! Music connects us, from at-home karaoke singalongs to living room dance parties. Now you can browse hundreds of songs to find new favorites, relive campfire classics, and make memories together—all digitally downloaded at no cost." GSUSA

Now through April 30th, 2020, Girl Scouts of the USA will be offering free music downloads of all of our music recordings for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts! It is part of their initiatives to Serve Girls, Consumers, and Communities in Need During the COVID-19 Crisis. “During this challenging time, we want girls across the country to continue to have access to the learning opportunities, fun, and friendship that Girl Scout programming provides,” says Acevedo. “Girl Scouts at Home is all about that and more." 

Please help yourself to as many songs as you like for you and your troop! Take advantage of these free creative music stay-at-home opporunities to sing, dance and share the music!

Stay safe & healthy and continue to take care of each other - itʻs amazing how doing something good for someone else can brighten your own day! But then again, Girl Scouts and Girl Guides have always known and practiced this!!

For Inspiration, please read this beautiful poem for heart and mind! 

A poem by Ngāti Hine/Ngāpuhi shared by Jacinda Adern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, to Papatūānuku (Mother Earth)

🍃Rest now, e Papatūānuku
Breathe easy and settle
Right here where you are
We’ll not move upon you
For awhile🍃
We’ll stop, we’ll cease
We’ll slow down and stay home
Draw each other close and be kind
Kinder than we’ve ever been.
I wish we could say we were doing it for you
as much as ourselves
But hei aha
We’re doing it anyway
It’s right. It’s time.
Time to return
Time to remember
Time to listen and forgive
Time to withhold judgment
Time to cry
Time to think
About others
Remove our shoes
Press hands to soil
Sift grains between fingers
🍃 Gentle palms
Time to plant
Time to wait
Time to notice
To whom we belong
For now it’s just you
And the wind
And the forests and the oceans and the sky full of rain
Finally, it’s raining!
Ka turuturu te wai kamo o Rangi ki runga i a koe
🍃Embrace it
This sacrifice of solitude we have carved out for you
He iti noaiho - a small offering
People always said it wasn’t possible
To ground flights and stay home and stop our habits of consumption
But it was
It always was.
We were just afraid of how much it was going to hurt
- and it IS hurting and it will hurt and continue to hurt
But not as much as you have been hurt.
So be still now
Wrap your hills around our absence
Loosen the concrete belt cinched tight at your waist
Rest.
Breathe.
Recover.
Heal -
And we will do the same."