Helping Hands (Paper Doll History of the Girl Scout Uniform)

In just the first two and one-half years of World War II, Girl Scouts gave 15,430,000 hours of service. Among many other projects, they collected and washed bottles for blood storage, gathered rose hips to make vitamin C–rich syrup for soldiers, sewed 100,000 stuffed toys for Bundles for Britain, and harvested milkweed to fill lifejackets. Featuring historical adult scout Kit Hammett and focusing on Girl Scout service during and after World War II, Helping Hands details much more than history of the Girl Scout Uniform. Four fictive diarists, intermediate scouts Rosalyn and Patsy, from Tallahassee and Tulsa, and senior scouts Linda and Sandy, from Fresno and Milwaukee, chronicle their troop activities and personal service from 1942 to 1957, the Girl Scout centenary year.

Postwar projects helped those in battle-ravaged areas with seeds for replanting, school supplies, clothing bundles, and toys. Girl Scouts even helped the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration set up camps for children in Greece and Egypt. Still later, Girl Scouts gave aid to Korea. In 1955, Rosalyn exclaims, "We have been so concerned about service abroad that we almost forgot that ‘Charity begins at home’!" Happily, she reports on Kit Hammett’s three-year Camping Caravan training tour of the United States; the Juliette Low Birthplace Restoration; the new World Center in Mexico; and the "Keep America Beautiful" campaign.