Citing Low Interest, Girl Scouts To Sell Many Of Their Local Camps

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- The announcement surprised many.

The Girls Scouts Western Pennsylvania is selling more than half their girls camps and over 1,500 acres of pristine woodlands.

"I was shocked," Jennifer Golling of Shaler told KDKA money editor Jon Delano on Tuesday.

Golling, now a mother of a young girl, has been in scouting since age 14.

"Beyond it being a shock of your childhood kind of going away, it's the fact that I think there's confusion on accountability, and why this keeps happening."

After closing three camps not long ago, five more camps are slated to close at the end of March -- and then sold.

Closing are Camps Elliott (Lawrence Co.), Curry Creek (Jefferson Co.), Resting Waters (Allegheny National Forest), Singing Hills (Venango Co.), and Roy Weller (Preston Co. WV) that together have beds for over 900 girls.

"Our membership simply does not support nine camps," says Patricia Burkart, CEO of Girl Scouts Western PA.

Burkart said closing was not an easy decision.

"Both parents are working these days and so there is not as much time spent at camp as maybe 30, 40 years ago," she says.

"Our membership voted with their feet by which camps they've gone to over the past four or five years."

Girl Scout officials say that fewer than 13 percent of Girl Scouts are using these camps, which makes them economically unsustainable.

But others say the Girl Scouts are not doing what they can to promote camping.

"There are ways to adapt these new camps that are going to offer fun and exciting things for girls to do," says Golling.

Burkhart says four Girl Scout camps will remain open.

They are Camps Redwing (Butler Co.), Conshatawba (Cambria Co.), Skymeadow (Armstrong Co.), and Hawthorne Ridge (Erie Co.).

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