American Heritage Girls
Posted by Kevin Ward
on Sep 16, 2012
American Heritage Girls
Faith / Service / Fun
by Kevin Ward
AHG was started in 1995 and has been growing like wildfire since. It is a scouting equivalent to the girl or boy scouts, it is structured and works closely with BSA. AHG is a girls organization (ahgonline.org) and is designed to work with girls from 5-18 yoa to build women of integrity through service to God, family, community and country. It is to help build confidence as they grow and is faith based, owned by churches.
I first learned about it from a church mom at our church earlier this year, whose daughter was part of a group at our sister church Hill Country Bible Church Northwest in Cedar Park where our family attended until we moved to Hill Country Bible Church Pflugerville. I had been invited to come meet with them as my role as a peace officer in our community in an effort to assist her as she earned a "badge" for bike safety and since I was helping with Pflugerville PD/Rotary Bike Rodeo . As I assisted them I also learned a lot from them as well. I went home with a thought that we needed our own troop here in Pflugerville and our church would be an excellent location. So after praying about it, God really was putting this on my heart to do this for our community so families could have a safe place in our own community to teach our girls (including my three girls) about what a life of service to others is all about. I also learned a lot of parents were driving either to Cedar Park or S Austin to attend which was another reason to get us started here in our own community.
I knew our challenges, but since working with Constable Ballesteros as we formed our Police Explorer Post 711 at our office as an outreach to at risk youth to the community I felt this would be about the same process and would be able to duplicate it here in Pflugerville. So over time I was able to meet with our church who approved us, then in knowing we needed funding to help pay for chartering our Troop met with KC Smith and asked if my friends with the Pflugerville Rotary would help with some of the startup costs in which they paid our charter fee in which I am very thankful. I was able to get the word out within the local organization and was able to find a group of ladies who agreed to become our guiding board with me. That in place I also felt a great desire to honor my co-worker and buddy Cpl Kevin Aigner who died while serving our community during the Steiner Ranch fires and again discussing with our board approved using his "call sign" we used on our police radios of 240. So with this and also help from his wife Ronya Aigner we have started AHG TROOP TX240.
We officially received our charter the first week of Sept. and had our first official kick off meeting on Thursday Sept 13th. So we met, posted the colors, had our prayers and I discussed Kevin and his role in our troop number and we were off to a new beginning. We had planned for about 20-30 girls to start however we were blessed with 54 girls so our challenges continue as we plan, seek ongoing financial assistance (for scholarships so we never have to turn any girl away because they cannot pay dues for materials, uniforms, etc..) and leadership support as we seek parents to help lead our girls. I have attached a few pictures from our first meeting.