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Keepers of the Faith/American Heritage Girls
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We recently attended an American Heritage Girls meeting and while I LOVED the concept, I was a little taken aback by the high cost of participating and fundraising requirements – probably not seen as expensive when broken down costs for the year, but we have five daughters and by the time we purchased uniforms, books, national fees, local fees it would be nearly $500 for my three that are old enough AND each girl would have to fundraise $90. (I’m NOT a big fan of fundraisers!!! But the “buyout” would be $20 per girl) SO…. our church has Awana and that’s FREE! But it is weekly in the evening and the nights are bitterly cold here in the winter and I just don’t want to do something weekly and not really crazy about doing something in the evening, which AHG also meets in the evenings. So this brought me back to Keepers of the Faith Girls. I’d have to start my own club if we wanted our girls to participate with others, but I’m thinking a monthly meeting during the day would be doable with “at home” club meetings in between. Does anyone have any experience with Keepers of the Faith – I realize that their book reviews are controversial, I’m wondering if these same opinions are included in their handbooks. Is there lots of doctrine in there or is it more of a guide? I don’t have a problem with their book reviews, I don’t agree with all of them, but I don’t stress about them either, but I would want to be able to answer that for others.
Opinions on Keepers of the Faith?
Convince me that it’s worth it to go with an already established AHG club and just pay the price.
Or would it be possible to attend Awana every other week and still benefit?
The cost and fundraiser of AHG was a big turn off for me when I checked into it. And my son was upset that he was excluded. We found a 4H. There is flexibility for projects, which they get paid for. Itis for boys and girls and you do not have to have a farm animal, which is what I originally thought.
We joined a Keepers of the Faith group this year and our dd LOVES it! We sold puffed pastries at the beginning of the school year. Not every family participated, which was fine. The girls that participated can draw money from the funds earned for supplies and badges. The other families pay for supplies and badges out of pocket as we go.
We meet twice a month on the 1st and 2nd Thursday afternoon from 1:30 to 3:00 at a local church. There is around 12-15 girls in our group ranging in age from 5 to 14. The moms take turns leading a character study and teaching the projects to earn badges. So far this year we’ve tye dyed t-shirts at the first meeting to be used as “club shirts”, learned about both hot water bath and pressure cooker canning, card making, cake decorating, hand sewing, and this month each girl just finished sewing her own skirt. In December we only met once and that was to Christmas carol at a local nursing home. One of the families pre-made paper ornaments that all the girls distributed. We also brought cookies and juice for the residents. It was great!! In our upcoming meetings, the girls will be cooking, basket making and scrapbooking. We plan to have an end of year ceremony in May to present the girls their badges, possibly in the evening so dad’s can come. Our dd has learned many skills and had opportunities that she would not have had if we had not joined.
Also, one of the families has a 12 year old son who volunteered to lead a Contenders of the Faith group for little brothers, same time, same place as the girls. There are 5 boys age 6-9 that he leads and they’ve had a great time as well. They did sign language, public speaking, scripture memory, and astronomy so far.
I don’t have experience with AHG, but our Keepers/Contenders groups have been a great experience :))
Blessings,
Melissa
Thanks Ladies! I’m going to check into 4H too – great idea. Though having all girls, I kinda like all girl activities.
Melissa – Do you get any type of denomination “vibe” or anti-denominational “vibe” from the materials? I’m thinking specifically of wanting to be sensivtive to my catholic friends…
Rebekahy, I don’t feel any denomination vibe one way or another. We only reference Keepers material for the badge guidelines. The mom’s take turns leading the character studies from whatever resources they have available. I taught/led “attention” using the SCM Laying Down the Rails books. One mom taught diligence with some other resource. And another mom taught truthfulness with yet another resource. Each trait has been tied to scripture but so far there’s been nothing offensive toward any specific denomination. I think you could easily adapt it one way or another, but because we have a large group with mixed denominations, we just stick with good character and God’s Word.
I hope this makes sense….
Blessings,
Melissa
We attended a Keepers group for a number of years before it dissolved for lack of a group leader. (We were all just involved in too many other things, being about 90% homeschooling families.) But this group had been around for about 15 years or so, and they met one Monday evening a month. We followed the book they publish only to be able to complete badges & order them at the end of the year. Really, it was left up to the moms to decide if their girl(s) had accomplished enough to be awarded the badge. For example, I substituted a few “projects” my girls did with their special needs brother for some of the activities required for the special needs badge, and the group leader was fine with that.
As it mentions on the Keepers of the Faith website, groups are not required to register with them nor purchase/wear uniforms. Our group opted to make or purchase sashes to display our badges, but wearing them during regular meetings was optional. We would all wear them at the last meeting in June and awarded newly-earned badges then. A few girls did not want to wear sashes, so they designated a hat for displaying badges. Again, fine with our group leader & the other moms.
Since our group disbanded 3 years ago and we missed it a lot, another mom from the group & I decided to start our own group that meets at our church. (The other group met about 30 minutes from home.) Our pastor’s wife had been wanting to start a group of some sort for girls, so she helps us lead the group. We only have 4 regularly-attending families, but we really enjoy it. We are even looser in our ties to the Keepers material in that only half of the projects we have done are actual badge-eligible activities, but some could be tied into one of the badges. Example: we held a tea party in November this year, and the girls had been learning about manners, table settings, and other matters of etiquette and hospitality, so we applied those towards earning hospitality and napkin-folding badges.
What we do for each meeting is have one of the moms teach a short lesson on whatever our theme is (this year, we are going through the fruit of the Spirit, although we doubled up on a couple of them to get everything in within the school year….we don’t meet in the summer), then we have a craft or activity, and we finish with light refreshments. The girls are instructed to serve their moms (and our Pastor’s wife) first, then themselves. It’s an easy group to lead and meetings are relatively simple to put together.
I’d like to chime in about AHG. We are completing our 2nd year with AHG and my girls love it! The badge work has opened up opportunities we may not have tried and we have found a wonderful group of friends. We co-meet with a Trail Life Troop (previously Boy Scouts) so our entire family meets at the same location, same night, and same time. We love that it is a one stop shop for our family and we are not running around on different nights of the week. We meet twice a month and have the opportunity to participate in at least 1 service project each month, attend a week long local camp, enjoy hiking and camping trips, a Father-Daughter Dance, and more.
Rebekahy, I would personally ask for a copy of the troop budget. There is no reason you should be asked to pay that much! For my troop, we pay a $26 annual membership per girl, uniforms are either $12 or $24, depending on the level, and can be used for up to 3 years (The exception is the Pathfinder level. Their uniform is used for 1 year and costs $26. Their shirt is optional in my group.), the handbook is a one-time fee of $18.00 (used for the duration of your AHG career), and $20 annual dues to our troop which goes towards activities. We have the option to participate in the 2-3 fundraising events scheduled for that year. Personally, we choose not to participate in these. Therefore, if it was our first year I would pay a max of $176 for my 2 girls. The nice thing is that the next year I will only have to pay the annual fees for a total of $92. I do need to add that we pay for any badges outside of the ones my girls earn during their troop meetings. I think they are $2 each. She is an Explorer and generally earns 3-4/yr. so that is an additional $12. The troop pays for the badges earned as a group. Obviously there are other groups that are less expensive and offer great opportunities, but we love scouting and believe this is a great investment.
I hope you can see from this how exorbitant $500 for 3 girls seems. And the additional fundraising? I am curious about the events they hold and where this money is going.
(My daughter wants you all to know about her favorite AHG service project :o) – she serves food and visits with the needy each month. I must say, the girls love this opportunity!)
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