Troop 6000 (el. knyga) (skaityta knyga) | Nikita Stewart | knygos.lt

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The inspiring true story of the first Girl Scout troop founded for and by homeless girls lining in a shelter in Queens, New York, and the amazing, nationwide response that it sparked

Giselle Burgess was a young mother of five trying to provide for her family. Though she had a full-time job, 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 about 59,000 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 homeless 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. Readers feel the highs and lows as families make it out of the shelter while others falter, and children grow up with the stress of day-to-day homelessness, 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 to more 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, no matter how challenging life may be.