Every year, Nawal Abuhamdeh posts on social media that her Girl Scout troop is accepting cookie orders. But this year, she announced that her 10-year-old daughter and fellow troop members in St. Louis were instead selling handmade Palestinian-themed bracelets to raise money for Gazan children suffering the ravages of war.
Abuhamdeh, 35, soon got an email from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri telling her that theeight-member troop was prohibited from raising money for other organizations or through activities that represent partisan politics.
“Girl Scouts is a non-partisan organization that does not take sides in political situations,” the Jan. 15 email read, later adding, “Our organization and members who represent our organization must stay neutral, as we support all girls, everywhere.”
Abuhamdeh said Girl Scout Troop 149, which she has led since 2019, did not feel supported, so much so that it has since parted ways with the organization. Throughout a month-long ordeal, Abuhamdeh said she remained confused about the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri initially characterizing the fundraiser as political when the scouts wanted to come to the aid of children.
“This isn’t political,” she told The Washington Post. “It’s very simple actually: We saw a need. We saw people hurting, and we wanted to help those people.”
Girl Scouts of the USA lifted its fundraising restriction for three months at the start of the Israel-Gaza war, a spokeswoman told The Post. The organization has done the same during other crises, including floods, hurricanes, earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the wildfires in Hawaii and the war in Ukraine.
Troop 149’s bracelet fundraiser started three days after the national fundraising restriction went back into place on Jan. 10. Still, the national organization did not like the way the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, one of 111 chartered councils that make up the Girl Scouts of the USA, handled the situation, a national spokeswoman said.
“We are disappointed and disheartened by the tone of the communications to Troop 149 and regret any hurt caused,” the Girl Scouts of the USA spokeswoman said.
In a statement to The Post, the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri said it “went to great lengths” to work with Abuhamdeh to find a way for the troop to host the fundraiser.
“Our goal was to stay true to the Girl Scout’s national guidelines and treat all fundraising efforts the same,” the statement read.When Girl Scout cookie season rolled around in January, Abuhamdeh and her scouts couldn’t muster the energy to sell like they had in years past, she said. The war in Gaza had been raging for about three months, and by that time had killed more than 23,900 people and displaced nearly 2 million, or 85 percent of the enclave’s population. Of those killed, most were women and children, and hundreds of thousands more were suffering “crisis levels of hunger.”
The girls, who are all Muslim, feel affected by the war in Gaza, Abuhamdeh said. Some have ties to the region, although not Gaza.
When Abuhamdeh asked what they wanted to do, the girls said they should focus on selling the bracelets this year and skip selling cookies.
“It was a simple idea. It wasn’t supposed to cause havoc or break any policies or rules,” she said.
On Jan. 13, Abuhamdeh posted to Instagram and Facebook, telling her followers that “cookie season is going to look a little different for Troop 149 this year” because the girls would be selling handmade bracelets and donating all proceeds to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a U.S.-based charity that helps children with severe needs to get medical treatment in the United States and Europe. She included a link through which people could order the red, green, black, white and gold beaded bracelets that spelled out “Gaza” or “Palestine.”
Two days later, the first message came from the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri, according to emails shared with The Post. The nonprofit’s chief membership and marketing officer told Abuhamdeh that she appreciated the scouts’ activism, but their fundraiser violated the group’s governing documents and nonprofit status.
An hour and 20 minutes later, the official sent a follow-up email, thanking Abuhamdeh for removing the Girl Scouts’ trefoil images from her Instagram post. But the post still mentioned Girl Scouts specifically and implied that the unsanctioned fundraiser was associated with the group, the email stated, which included suggested edits. Abuhamdeh said she did not edit the posts as she continued interacting with the official.
On Jan. 29, the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri employee told Abuhamdeh that she had failed to remove all references to the Girl Scouts and threatened to “engage our legal counsel” if she did not, an email states. That scared Abuhamdeh, who switched her social media accounts to private.
After two weeks of sporadic email exchanges in which Abuhamdeh said she felt like she was pouring her heart out to try to get through to Girl Scouts officials, she approached her troop. She told the scouts that she hadn’t made headway on getting the fundraiser approved and asked what they wanted to do. As a group, they decided to part ways with the Girl Scouts because the organization no longer “aligned with our values,” Abuhamdeh said.
“It was simple for them. They didn’t think we did anything wrong,” she said, later adding: “They were like, ‘Well, we’re going to still sell bracelets. We’re going to do what’s right.”
Abuhamdeh sent an email asking for instructions on how to separate. She received a response right away, she said, and the troop officially parted with the organization on Feb. 16.
But the girls will stay together, even if they’re not Girl Scouts, Abuhamdeh said. The core group of eight will keep making bracelets, doing community service projects and going on adventures — all the things they did as Girl Scouts, even if they no longer go by that name.