Marion Chester Read Award: Charlene
When Charlene Stumvoll volunteered to be a troop leader for her sixth-grade daughter’s troop, she knew she would stick with it until the girls graduated. “I didn’t go into it lightly,” Charlene recounts. “If I was going to be a troop leader, I’d be with them until the end.”
Still, nearly 25 years later and Charlene is still volunteering with the Girl Scouts — clearly, the end has not yet arrived.
Whether she is leading a troop, hosting arts-and-crafts sessions at camp, helping out at the Marion Chester Reed Service Center, or assisting a struggling troop trying to get off the ground, Charlene is always willing to help out. For this reason, she was recently awarded the Marion Chester Read Award for her continual support of Girl Scouts Wisconsin Southeast.
Growing up in Hartland but now residing in Oconomowoc, Charlene spent a few short years as a Girl Scout when she was in elementary school herself. But it wasn’t until her eldest daughter’s sixth grade year that Charlene returned to the organization as a leader. She started homeschooling her daughter and her new troop needed a leader. A year later, Charlene connected with a mom friend and the two of them agreed to co-lead her daughter’s original troop, staying with them through high school graduation. Of course, her youngest daughter had also been influenced while helping her big sister sell Girl Scout cookies. Once Charlene’s youngest began kindergarten, she started a troop for her also, and stayed with those girls through all 13 years.
Although both of her daughters are now graduated, she now leads a troop for her niece and a troop of girls who needed leaders from a local school. Charlene continues to support the Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast in other ways too. In 2008, a local troop leader began remodeling the troop house in Oconomowoc, a two-bedroom octagon-shaped building with a kitchen and bathroom that is used for monthly troop meetings by 18 local troops. Naturally Charlene stepped in to assist and did so again last year for a second remodel.
Charlene also enjoys crafts and has spent a lot of her free time helping out with craft programs at day camps. She ran the arts-and-crafts program for seven years at Lakeland Day Camp before moving over to Woodland Trails Camp as the craft guru. She also bopped back in with various appearances as a troop leader whenever a group of girls was in need. When a local kindergarten troop had interested kiddos but no leader, Charlene stepped in and led the troop. When a nearby high school troop’s leader became overwhelmed, Charlene merged the two troops so the girls could remain in the program.
And, that’s still not all. Charlene was also a long-time volunteer at the Marion Chester Read Service Center, helping out with inventory at the store when needed. This morphed into a temporary, part-time position for over a year. Then, a unique turn of events left the Service Center with all-new staff and an outgoing director, so Charlene used her years of experience to smooth the first month of the transition for everyone before moving on to product sales at the Resource Center.
“Basically, I’ll help wherever there is a need,” Charlene says. “And I’ll move on when there is a greater need elsewhere.”
They are modest words for someone who has devoted nearly 25 years of her adult life to the Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast, but her efforts are not unnoticed.
“Charlene is the leader that we all hope we can be one day,” says Dr. Trina Moskalik, a fellow volunteer. “She is the best.”
But for Charlene, it’s just doing what needs to be done and for an organization that she dearly loves.
“I believe in the Girls Scouts,” she says. “I believe in what they say and how they build courage, confidence and character in the girls. It’s so worth it.”
