Greetings from Junior Girl Scout Troop #523 in Waggaman, Louisiana. We're located just outside the New Orleans city limits and belong to the Southeast Louisiana Council. Our little community sits right on the bank of the Mississippi River, separated from it by a levee, and is near where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. Our state capital is Baton Rouge, state bird is the Brown Pelican, state tree is the Bald Cypress, and our state flower is the Magnolia.

Our troop consists of 15 girls between the ages of 9 and 12 who are in the 4th, 5th and 6th grades, and attend several different schools in our area.

*Ashley G.’s Page**Ashley P.’s Page**Ashley R.’s Page**Britsy’s Page**Carol’s Page**Casey’s Page**Crystal’s Page**Heather’s Page**Kallie’s Page**Kristy’s Page**Megan’s Page**Rita’s Page**Sandy’s Page**Vanessa’s Page**Victoria’s Page*

We have 2 leaders who are pretty good sports, too.

We meet once a week for an hour and a half at our local library. (Yes, we do get a little loud and rowdy sometimes, but the librarians are very patient with us!)

New Orleans is known for Mardi Gras, the French Quarter, Bourbon Street, Dixieland Jazz, the Superdome, the St. Charles Avenue Streetcar line, and our delicious Creole and Cajun cuisine, to name a few things.

So far this year we've done many exciting things, including a camping trip, visit to a wildlife refuge, we've visited several museums, a Native American exhibit, as well as science and nature exhibits. We've worked on earning patches and have participated in several community service projects.

We're very excited about designing our own homepage and have had great success in trading council patches with other troops across the U.S. and around the world through the internet. Our goal is to collect one patch from each state. We still need Connecticut, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, D.C., West Virginia and Wyoming.

In '97, we have a service unit-wide project planned which will be shared on our homepage. The Junior troops will produce a video tape of a walking tour of the French Quarter. Each troop will be responsible for providing information and a guided tour of some of the historical sites in the French Quarter. The tour follows the Girl Scout guideline for earning the New Orleans Heritage patch. We intend to loan the video tape, by snail mail, to troops who are interested in learning about our city and earning a great looking patch in the process!