MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Girls from the age of 5 through 17 that claim to have nothing to do now can now spend time with an elite group of peers.
The Girl Scouts of the United States of America are for girls from the ages of 5 through 17.
The U.S.A. Girl Scouts Overseas Iwakuni held their annual World Thinking Day. The Daisies, Brownies, Junior and Cadette girl scouts collectively put in an immense amount of time and hard work to make this event special.
"The troops started preparing for this event approximately two months ago," said Patti Turner, overseas committee chairman. "Each troop was given a random country and it was then up to them to research the Girl Scout program from that specific country."
Besides researching the different Girl Scout programs, added tasks were given to each troop.
Each troop brought a native food from their respective country, and they also put on a demonstration or told facts about the country, said Turner.
"One of the memorable displays that we saw were from the troop that had Mongolia," added Turner. "They managed to bring an actual Mongolian style house."
"My favorite part of the day was eating the different foods from each country and learning about them," said 8-year-old Anne-Marie Davis Clark.
In addition to the food tasting and demonstration that each troop put on, passports were handed out to each of the girls.
"The girls were handed passports and then traveled to different countries and received a stamp from each one," said Turner. "The passport thing was used when I first got here and I thought it would be a good idea to bring it back."
Another change that was made to the annual event was the inclusion of a friendship salad instead of the traditional candle ceremony.
"The candle ceremony at times can be long and makes the girls uneasy. The friendship salad is a simple, quick ceremony," said Turner. "Each troop dumps different fruits into a bowl. This is a way to remember the girl scouts from around the world."
After starting World Thinking Day with the friendship salad, the action-packed day was summed up with the individual troop performances.
With only 65 Girl Scouts, the program is struggling compared to last year's amount of 100 girls. Added participation was encouraged from the overseas committee chairman.
"We lost a lot of our members with the permanent change of station taking away a major part of our members," said Turner. "New girls are always encouraged to sign up and join one of our troops here. It doesn't matter what time of the year new members are more then welcome to participate at any time of the year."