Today is Founder’s Day! We celebrate this occasion on October 31 in honor of Juliette Gordon Low’s Birthday. Here are ten fun facts about the first Girl Scout! 
- Juliette was originally from Savannah, Georgia, and called “Daisy” by her family and friends. (Yes, this is why the youngest Girl Scouts are called Daisies!)
- Every year on her birthday, she did a headstand– just to prove she could! Today, some Girl Scouts try doing a headstand on Founder’s Day!
- She never tasted sugar until she was four years old.
- As a child, she suffered from multiple illnesses and injuries, which almost resulted in total hearing loss.
- Her favorite subject in school was art, and she was very talented at drawing, painting, and sculpting, along with woodworking and blacksmithing. If your troop has taken a trip to her birthplace in Savannah, you might have seen a set of wrought iron gates she forged!
- She was a super sportswoman, excelling at tennis, horseback riding, shooting, swimming, fishing, and boating (she was captain of her school rowing crew).
- She was an avid and adventurous traveler, including climbing the Great Pyramid in Egypt and riding an elephant in India.
- She first started troops for “Girl Guides” in London and Scotland, before starting a troop in America in 1912. One year later, the girls decided they wanted to be “Scouts,” and the name was officially changed to Girl Scouts of the United States.
- She was awarded two patents by the United States Patent and Trademark office– a utility patent in 1915 for a “Liquid Container for Use with Garbage Cans or the Like” and a design patent in 1914 for an ornamental design for a badge/pin, symbolizing the three parts to the Girl Scout Promise. The trefoil is now a registered trademark of GSUSA and has identified its members for over 100 years!
- She has been honored with many awards through the years, culminating with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, the hundredth anniversary of Girl Scouting in the USA.
The legacy left by Juliette has reached millions of people across multiple countries. Do you have a bold idea you believe in? Maybe it’s a positive change for your school, a business idea that would help people, or an invention to protect our planet. Whatever your vision may be, remember Juliette. Combine your inspiration with hard work, build a community, and work towards the positive change you believe in. You never know how far it can go. Or maybe you do.
