Girl Scout Festival prove fun for family

Girl Scouts-Sybaquay Council's Latina Adult Volunteer Advancement program recently held its third annual Girl Scout Festival at Centro de Informacion in Carpentersville.

This fun, family event was hosted in partnership with Centro de Informacion and sponsored by Comcast.

More than 300 participants enjoyed free activities, games, snacks, music and dancing. Additionally, two Latina groups performed at the event, including the Latina Girl Scout dance group Ballet Folklorico, led by adult volunteer Carmen Berrio, and a cheer squad led by 17-year-old Girl Scout, Yesenia Estela.

Comcast volunteers hosted a booth where participants made crafts, had fun with balloon animals and received free gifts. Sybaquay Council volunteers and staff members were on hand to provide information about the Girl Scout program and to sign girls up as Girl Scouts. Centro de Informacion was also on hand to answer questions about the services that they provide to the Latino community.

Girl Scouts-Sybaquay Council is headquartered in Elgin and serves more than 10,500 girls and almost 3,000 adults in 50 communities in McHenry County and parts of Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Lake, LaSalle, and Kane counties.

The Latina Adult Volunteer Advancement initiative was started in 2003 because of the identification of a need to serve the growing Latina population. Sybaquay's LAVA program, led by Silvia Ysais, director of membership initiative at Sybaquay, was one of the first of its kind and served as a pilot to the LAVA programs now existing at Girl Scout councils across the United States. Sybaquay Council regularly hosts events in the Latina community, serving over 1,000 Latina girls and close to 150 adults in its jurisdiction.

For more information about Girl Scouting, call (847) 741-5521; for Spanish, dial ext. 145.