The Girl Scouts of NE Kansas & NW Missouri is ending its relationship with the United Way of Greater St. Joseph.
The Girl Scouts have been a United Way of Greater St. Joseph Partner Agency since 1933.
Kylee Strough, president of the United Way said they were informed on April 27 that Girl Scouts were electing to terminate the agency relationship.
“According to the letter they sent us it has to do with primarily some of the policies that they and all other partner agencies agreed to regarding fundraising beyond the United Way,” Strough said.
As a United Way Partner agencies are restricted in where they can seek funds and the time of years they can do it in.
Strough said the Girl Scouts also expressed some disappointment with the amount of dollars they have been receiving from the United Way.
She said for the past two years they have been allocated $12,500. However, in 2012-13 the agency only received $5,000 in allocations. Strough said prior to that they had been receiving $30,000 or more.
She said the decrease came when the Girl Scouts consolidated.
“In the simplest of terms it had to do with the consolidation and removal of staff and things like that in this area and we saw the number of girls in scouting decline in that time also so the United Way volunteers decreased the allocations because it appeared they were doing less,” Strough said. “And the same story is true as to when it went up. That was when the volunteers saw significant improvement in the efforts in the area.”
The Girl Scouts serve 47 county jurisdictions surrounding the Greater Kansas City, Topeka and St. Joseph areas.
“We are disappointed to see they are no longer choosing to be a partner agency and wish them all the best,” Strough said.
As of May 31, the partnership will end. This will bring the United Way down from 19 partner agencies to 18.
The St. Joseph Post placed several calls in to contact a representative with the Girl Scouts for comment but was not immediately able to get a hold of anyone. When our call is returned we will update with further information.