From cookie sales to the national stage - Madi Meyer finds her voice through Girl Scouts

For most Girl Scouts, the journey might begin with cookies, crafts and a colorful vest covered with am assortment of patches.

For Brandon Valley High School junior Madi Meyer, those early experiences eventually led to something much bigger: a national stage, where she was given an opportunity to help shape the future of the Girls Scouts organization, which she has belonged to since she was a kindergartener.

This summer, Meyer was one of just 12 Girl Scouts from across the country selected for a Youth Leadership role at the 58th National Council Session in Washington, D.C.

Approximately 400 Girl Scouts participated as youth delegates at the July gathering, but only 12 were selected for Youth Leadership roles, working alongside the National Board and Girl Scouts of the USA leadership.

Meyer was one of them.

“It is the largest demonstration of the democratic process a girl can participate in globally,” Meyer said of the National Council Session. 

The National Council Session, held every three years, brings together delegates from Girl Scout councils across the country to discuss and vote on issues affecting the future of Girl Scouting. More than 900 Girl Scouts participated as delegates at the 2026 session.

For Meyer, the opportunity was the culmination of years of involvement – and a goal she had been thinking about since she attended the 2023 National Council Session in Orlando.

She was only 13 at the time and too young yet to participate as a delegate. Instead, she sat in on the meetings and observed.

“I went to the meeting and I sat in the meetings and I was watching what was happening in these meetings and I was like, ‘I want to do that,’” Meyer recalled.

Three years later, she got her chance.

From observer to leader

Meyer first applied to become a delegate representing Girl Scouts Dakota Horizons. Once selected as a delegate, she had another opportunity: applying for the Girl Scouts of the USA National Youth Council.

That application process required her to explain why she wanted the opportunity and what Girl Scouts had done for her, along with letters of recommendation, one of which required a letter from a CEO.

She could have easily turned to her mother, Marla, for a recommendation. After all, she’s the CEO of Girl Scouts Dakota Horizons.

But she didn’t take the easy out. Instead, she was determined to earn the opportunity all on her own.

“I applied for everything myself because, obviously, since she’s a part of the council, I didn’t want anybody to think that she was doing that for me,” Meyer said of her mother’s CEO role.

Meyer was selected to serve alongside 11 other girls from across the nation. Her responsibilities included helping lead the National Council Session, working with a national board member and helping guide the meeting.

Shortly after arriving in Washington, her responsibilities expanded.

Meyer and another youth leader from New York, had been assigned to listen to discussion topics, write summaries of what was discussed and eventually present those summaries to the full gathering.

But organizers had another idea.

“When we showed up, they were like, ‘Well, since you’re closing the meeting, why don’t you just open it?’” Meyer remembers.

So that’s exactly what they did. The two girls stood before thousands of people to open the meeting, and Meyer said she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by the massive audience.

“I was confident in what I was doing because it was a room full of Girl Scouts. People wanted to see you do well,” she said.

She also had some experience on her side.

“I haven’t ever really had stage fright, so it’s just easy to get up there,” she said.

The experience was a natural extension of what Girl Scouts has been teaching her since she was a Daisy.

Finding her voice

Meyer became a Girl Scout in kindergarten, shortly after her family moved to Brandon.

Over the years, the program has given her opportunities to travel, serve her community, develop business skills and, perhaps most importantly, find confidence in her own voice.

“Girl Scouts has taught me so much,” she said. “It helped me find – especially from a young age – confidence in myself and being able to talk in front of thousands of people.”

For Meyer, Girl Scouts is about far more than cookies and crafts.

“The cookie program teaches business ethics and that you can have a voice and can be a part of something bigger,” she said.

That lesson has spilled over into other facets of her life.

At Brandon Valley, Meyer is involved in marching band, varsity soccer, theater, choir and Hope Squad. She said the confidence and communication skills she’s developed through Girl Scouts have helped her in those activities as well.

A vest that’s become

a scrapbook

There is plenty of physical evidence of Meyer’s Girl Scout journey. All one has to do is take a peek at her well-decorated vest.

Her current vest has become so covered with patches that an extension of the vest was warranted.

“I basically have a trench coat without sleeves, full of patches,” Meyer said.

The patches tell the story of her Girl Scout career.

The front represents her accomplishments, including her Bronze and Silver awards, troop information and the various paths she has taken.

The back is more like a scrapbook of her experiences, including patches collected from other Girl Scout councils and CEOs she has met.

“I have like 100 that I’ve gained from NCS that I still have to put on the back,” she said.

The vest may be heavy, but Meyer sees it as a visual record of everything Girl Scouts has given her.

“It’s kind of like a scrapbook of all the stuff you’ve done,” she said.

And she’s still adding to it.

Meyer recently bridged to become an Ambassador — the highest Girl Scout level she can attain before graduating from high school. She expects to become a lifetime Girl Scout after graduation.

Selling cookies and 

earning to lead

Meyer’s accomplishments haven’t come only on a national stage.

She has become an accomplished Girl Scout cookie entrepreneur, regularly selling between 1,500 and 2,000 boxes a year.

One year, she sold more than 2,000 boxes.

“I have a very, very supportive customer base,” she shares.

Her cookie-selling education included plenty of South Dakota winter weather.

When she was younger, Meyer remembers going door-to-door in snow boots and snow pants, introducing herself, explaining what she was selling and talking with customers. That experience, she said, teaches young girls something important.

The lessons learned through the cookie program have also helped Meyer fund some extraordinary experiences.

She used money earned through the Girl Scout cookie program to help pay for trips to Savannah, Ga., the birthplace of Girl Scouting, as well as Australia and New Zealand.

The latter trip included snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef and holding a koala.

“It was actually pretty educational as well,” Meyer said.

Looking ahead

Meyer’s experiences have also given her a growing interest in what comes next.

She knows she wants to attend college, although she hasn’t settled on a major.

After her experience at the National Council Session, she said marketing or business are possibilities.

“People always say I’d make a good lawyer, so let’’ see what route I go down,” she said.

For now, however, she is focused on finishing her Girl Scout journey – and making it count.

One of the issues she became particularly passionate about during the National Council Session was retaining older girls in Girl Scouts. Meyer said participation tends to decline as girls get older, but she believes opportunities such as the National Council Session can give older Girl Scouts a reason to stay involved.

She was especially interested in discussions about accessibility and creating more opportunities for older girls.

“It’s worth staying in it,” she said. “Because when you’re little, a Daisy, obviously it’s more about the crafts and the cookies. But as you get older in Girl Scouts, there’s opportunities that you can get from it, like the Gold Award. You can make vast impacts in your community.”

Meyer is already working on ideas for her own Gold Award project.

She also hopes other girls will look beyond the youngest years of Girl Scouting and see what the organization can offer as they grow older.

“For the older girls, it’s opportunities like NCS that keep them in the movement for sharing their voice and getting to put stuff into a movement that has put so much stuff into them,” she said.

Perhaps one of the most meaningful parts of the National Council Session wasn’t standing on stage in front of thousands of people. It was meeting other young women who shared her passion for Girl Scouting.

Meyer remains in contact with the 11 other girls who served with her on the National Youth Council. They came from across the country, including one girl from Alaska.

“They were just such incredible women to work with,” Meyer said. “You just got to meet so many new people and work with so many people that have the same ideals as you.”

“It’s just a bunch of very empowered young women,” she added.

At 16, Meyer has already traveled internationally, earned community service awards, sold thousands of boxes of cookies, represented her council nationally and stood before thousands of others to help lead one of Girl Scouting’s most significant gatherings.

And she’s not finished.

She’s determined to complete her Gold Award, continue exploring her future and eventually become a lifetime Girl Scout.

And if she happens to have a daughter of her own someday, there’s little doubt what Meyer hopes she will do.

“If I have a daughter, I’d probably strongly encourage her to be a part of Girl Scouts because it’’ an amazing program,” she said.

For Meyer, there are no regrets.

“I probably can’t imagine my life without Girl Scouts,” she said. “It’s just taught me so much.”