The inspiring true story of the first Girl Scout troop founded for and by girls living in a shelter in Queens, New York, and the amazing, nationwide response that it sparked
“A powerful book full of powerful women.”—Chelsea Clinton
Giselle Burgess was a young mother of five trying to provide for her family. Though she had a full-time job, the demands of ever-increasing rent and mounting bills forced her to fall behind, and eviction soon followed. Giselle and her kids were thrown into New York City’s overburdened shelter system, which housed nearly 60,000 people each day. They soon found themselves living at a Sleep Inn in Queens, provided by the city as temporary shelter; for nearly a year, all six lived in a single room with two beds and one bathroom. With curfews and lack of amenities, it felt more like a prison than a home, and Giselle, at the mercy of a broken system, grew fearful about her family’s future. She knew that her daughters and the other girls living at the shelter needed to be a part of something where they didn’t feel the shame or stigma of being homeless, and could develop skills and a community they could be proud of. Giselle had worked for the Girl Scouts and had the idea to establish a troop in the shelter, and with the support of a group of dedicated parents, advocates, and remarkable girls, Troop 6000 was born.
New York Times journalist Nikita Stewart settled in with Troop 6000 for more than a year, at the peak of New York City’s homelessness crisis in 2017, getting to know the girls and their families and witnessing both their triumphs and challenges. In Troop 6000, readers will feel the highs and lows as some families make it out of the shelter while others falter, and girls grow up with the stress and insecurity of not knowing what each day will bring and not having a place to call home, living for the times when they can put on their Girl Scout uniforms and come together. The result is a powerful, inspiring story about overcoming the odds in the most unlikely of places.
Stewart shows how shared experiences of poverty and hardship sparked the political will needed to create the troop that would expand from one shelter to fifteen in New York City, and ultimately inspired the creation of similar troops across the country. Woven throughout the book is the history of the Girl Scouts, an organization that has always adapted to fit the times, supporting girls from all walks of life.
Troop 6000 is both the intimate story of one group of girls who find pride and community with one another, and the larger story of how, when we come together, we can find support and commonality and experience joy and success, no matter how challenging life may be.
Troop 6000 is a fact based history of a Girl Scout troop which began in a homeless/crisis shelter in NYC and the woman behind its genesis. Released 19th May 2020 by Penguin/Random House on their Ballantine imprint, it's 288 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is a gripping and well told story about homelessness in the larger metropolitan areas of the USA (NYC specifically), interwoven with information about the Girl Scouts, and presented with an unflinching look at poverty, self-worth, and childhood. It's a potent cocktail and I wound up reading way past my bedtime on this one.
In addition to the biographical details about troop leader Giselle (who is mom to 3 of the girl scouts in the book) and the girls themselves, there is a fair bit of indepth information about generational poverty in the USA and ways the system is heavily weighted against success and escape. We're seeing even more clearly, with the current economic and pandemic crisis how metropolitan areas are being hit harder and more severely than the suburban and rural areas.
I was rooting for these girls and adults all the way through the book. Parts were heartwrenchingly sad to read. I also felt a lot of anger and bewilderment over a system which has the capacity to care humanely for its most vulnerable and chooses not to do so (although New York does a better job than most).
The writing is simple and direct. It's written in third person narrative as stories arranged roughly chronologically. I read it straight through, as a novel, but it would also be a superlative support text for a classroom setting for related subjects: sociology, childhood development, race and gender studies, etc.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
