GM FYI Blog

By Alicia Dorset
Blog editor

I was a Girl Scout for more than seven years, and in that time I learned how to do things like make my own marionettes, start a fire using only twigs, and play a recorder. Today, as an adult, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve needed to play a recorder, while the number of occasions I’ve needed to know how to change a tire, change the oil in my car or check the pressure in my tires is high.

Thank goodness for the Car Care merit badge, a Girl Scouts’ Girl Power Clinic event co-sponsored by GM.

This past weekend I had a chance to attend one of these clinics in Grand Blanc, Mich., (about an hour north of Detroit) with Junior Girl Scouts from the Fair Winds Council at Al Serra Chevrolet. I walked into the service department and knew these girls, who ranged in age from 9 to 12, meant business; they were wearing safety goggles and checking the pressure on Chevy Avalanche tires, comparing results with one another as they moved about the truck.

This wasn’t the last time I was impressed by this group of Scouts. As we discussed basic functions on cars, the talk quickly turned to alternative fuel sources, since the Avalanche we were working on was a FlexFuel vehicle. It didn’t take long for the girls to help define what a FlexFuel vehicle was, how to determine whether or not their parents’ cars could run on E85, and the difference between hybrids and other alternative-fuel vehicles.

It was definitely a hands-on afternoon. The girls took turns learning how to check the oil in a car as they discussed how to find the OnStar button in an emergency (it’s the “blue button.”)

When we finished in the service department, it was off for a talk about careers in not only the automotive engineering world, but as police officers, in car dealerships and more careers that have been male-dominated in the past. I was pleased to see the number of girls who quickly raised their hands when Beth Grotz, Director of Global Aftersales and Diagnostics & Electrical Engineering, asked how many wanted to be engineers when they grew up.

“We wanted thought it (clinic) was a great way to get involved in the community and to get to know a younger generation,” Eileen Healy, Executive Director, Product Line Development, told me.

And that was the bigger goal of the day – GM wanted to make sure that not only could these young girls become educated drivers and car owners in a few years, but potential designers, engineers and leaders of all sorts.

Casey Gross, a 9-year-old resident of Holly, was one of those scouts. I saw Casey answering questions all afternoon, in addition to trying all of the activities. What was her favorite part of the day? “I liked checking the tires,” she said.

And thanks to my afternoon with these Girl Scouts, now I like checking them, too.

To see more photos from the clinic, make sure to take a look at Flickr. To see the clinic in action, take a look at this video.