For Volunteers
Everything you need to keep your troop running smoothly
Find resources, guides, and more that are essential to volunteers
Everyone can use a little guidance, whether you’re a brand-new volunteer or a seasoned veteran. The resources on this page will help you along the way in your volunteer journey. Whether you’re looking for guidance on managing troop finances or need help planning your first year of meetings, you’ll find everything you need.
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Tinley Park Convention Center, 18451 Convention Center Dr, Tinley Park, IL 60477
9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Growing Together is a one-of-a-kind event designed for our Girl Scout adult members. It is part kickoff for the new Girl Scout year, part expo, part recognition, and ALL appreciation!
We’ll have workshops, an appreciation celebration, our recognition ceremony, resource stations, lounge areas, our retail shop, and so much more!
Your day includes a plated breakfast, a robust market-style lunch, and a dessert buffet.
Whether you’re a new leader, an experienced leader, a troop volunteer, a service unit team member, a product program volunteer, a council trainer, historian, or aspire to be more involved, this event will have something for YOU!
Sponsored by
Speaker Bios 
The Power of One Caring Adult (Showing Up When It’s Hard: Being a Trusted Adult)
Lashondria “Shonie” Purnell is a nurse and mental health practitioner with over 30 years of experience in adult and pediatric care. Her work spans community health and nearly two decades as a medical missionary in Africa and Haiti. Guided by her experience with trauma, she now focuses on mental health and healing through strength-based therapy, supported by advanced training and a Master’s in Positive Psychology. Shonie is deeply rooted in faith and committed to holistic healing.
Creating Emotional Safety and Belonging for Every Gir
Kathleen Donaldson is a mental health educator and trauma-informed care trainer with a background in Psychology. She equips leaders, organizations, and communities with the tools to support youth mental health while strengthening their own emotional intelligence and well-being. Through programs like the Trusted Adult Training and Culture Lab, she helps teams build trust, navigate conflict, and create cultures where people can do meaningful work without burning out.
You Matter Too: Managing (Preventing) Compassion Fatigue
Sarah Sophia is a creative, multi-passionate professional whose experience spans youth work, administration, canine massage, audio engineering, and a wide range of creative projects. As the firstborn daughter of immigrant parents and a lifelong caregiver for both her parents and nephew, she understands what it feels like to care deeply for others while learning how to care for yourself too. Her personal healing journey and passion for creativity continue to shape the way she connects, supports, and shows up in the world.
How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Can Support Your Girl Scout Leadership
Paige Michals is a Customer Success Account Manager at Microsoft, where she drives strategic engagement and champions inclusive innovation. A proud graduate of North Carolina A&T State University with a B.S. in Computer Engineering, Paige blends technical acumen with a passion for community empowerment. At Microsoft, Paige is an alumna of the Aspire program, a leadership development initiative for high-potential employees, and currently serves as the Chair for Black at Microsoft (BAM) Chicago. Paige also sits on the Associate Board of Chicago Scholars and Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana where she aims to create scalable, sustainable progress by amplifying voices and building bridges.
Confidently Supporting Girls with Disabilities in Your Troop
Ben Chargot is the Client Success and Training Specialist at Access Living. He is responsible for developing and delivering presentations centered around disability education, accessibility, and evolving language and perspectives. As a member of the disability community, Ben is a strong representative and advocate, with 35 years of lived experience and a decade in the accessibility consulting and inclusion industry. He holds a bachelor’s degree in percussion performance and is an avid drummer and guitar player, although he no longer works in the music industry. As a screen reader user, Ben understands the inequity of inaccessible websites and works to promote digital inclusion as part of his role at Access Living and holds several related certifications. Ben is blind and works with a Seeing Eye Dog. He advocates for public transportation, equal access to service animals and a world built for everyone.
Empowered Together: Online Safety Tools for Leaders, Volunteers & Families
Palak Sheth is a lawyer and tech-policy leader with over a decade of experience spanning constitutional law, consumer protection, and digital platform governance. She currently serves as Privacy & Public Policy Director at Meta, where she leads efforts to build products with privacy at the core, safely and equitably across the core apps - Instagram, Facebook & Threads. Throughout her career, Sheth has remained dedicated to civic engagement, non-profit leadership, and coalition building. She is the co-founder of Post March Salon, an organization dedicated to helping women sustain long-term political activism, and has led non-partisan voter turnout initiatives.
Event Schedule
Growing Together Patch
Growing Together is a celebration of our volunteers! Since YOU are the center of this event, we are customizing the event patches to reflect YOU. Every volunteer who registers by September 13 will receive a personalized event patch, like the ones shown above.
Early Bird pricing is available through July 31. All adult members who renew their membership by June 30 will receive a discount code to save and additional $10 off the Growing Together registration.
Volunteer resources available on MyGS
Many of your must-have tools, like gsLearn and the Volunteer Toolkit, are accessible when you log in to MyGS —always accessible via the icon on the upper right corner of our website.
Volunteer Toolkit
gsLearn
Volunteer Cookie Resources
Help your Girl Scout cookie entrepreneurs shine with these volunteer resources.
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