The halls of St. Paul’s United Church will be quieter on Tuesday nights now.
After more than 100 years of operating in the city, the Canadian Girls in Training (CGIT) group will disband at the end of the month.
“It is a grieving process, especially having been involved with it for as long as I have,” said Brenda Stouffer, 68, who’s been involved with CGIT for 61 years.
“I've never thought of my life not having this in it.”
Stouffer and Valerie Jenner have led the local Grande Prairie CGIT groups for nearly 50 years.
The Grande Prairie CGIT group is one of the last groups of an organization that was once just as well-known as Girl Guides or Boy Scouts.
Their uniform - the middy – is a white blouse with a blue sailor collar, and it hasn’t changed much since its inception.
The once-iconic uniform was known to all and can be found in historical photos across the country.
Look no further than Grande Prairie, where photos include settlers such as the Forbes at the first CGIT camp at Bear Lake in 1923 or a group of girls marching down 100 Ave. in 1945 for the victory parade concluding the end of the Second World War.
The Grande Prairie CGIT group is now the last active group in Alberta; a group in Regina will officially be the last in Canada. Splinter groups have been inspired elsewhere, such as a group in Winnipeg and as far away as Nigeria.
CGIT has been active in Grande Prairie since about 1920 but initially started in 1915 in Ontario.
“There was a CGIT group in every little community,” said Stouffer.
Local groups existed in Grande Prairie, Clairmont, Sexsmith, Wembley, Beaverlodge, and Dawson Creek, to name a few.
The history of the group's operations in the Grande Prairie region is well-documented, as the group has photos with the participants' names that go back to 1920.
“It was the thing to do,” said Jenner.
“You grew up going to Sunday school, and you would see the CGIT girls taking part in service or something, and everybody was antsy to be old enough to go to CGIT.”
After the Second World War, CGIT membership declined across the country.
Long-time leaders
In Grande Prairie, volunteers kept the group alive for years, with Stouffer and Jenner being a significant driving force.
Stouffer’s CGIT journey began as a Messenger (Grades 1-3 before CGIT), and she continued in the program as an Explorer (Grades 4-6) and then as a CGIT girl.
In 1969, when Stouffer was in CGIT, there were 74 girls, with two leaders for each grade group.
“In those days, there wasn't a lot to do,” recalls Stouffer. “You either were taking dance class, my sister took Highland dance, you were taking music lessons, or you were going to CGIT.”
She took a break after graduating from CGIT in 1974; in that short break, she got a job and a husband. By 1976, she returned as a leader with her first group of girls.
A year later, she was joined by Jenner, who would go on to become a long-time leader.
The duo are still leaders today.
“She (Jenner) came in blind and grabbed a bunch of Grade Seven girls and took them through six years of CGIT and stuck around and became involved at a provincial level … she just jumped in with both feet, and it became part of her world,” said Stouffer.
Jenner has served as the Alberta CGIT Association president since 2006.
“I didn't know anything about CGIT other than my older sister. I think she had been at CGIT for a couple of years with her friends, so that's all I knew about it,” said Jenner.
The duo would then take on different roles in the leadership of CGIT provincially and nationally.
Jenner recalls that when she began leading CGIT girls in Grande Prairie, there was a decline in groups across the country, and she has seen groups dissolve and disband across Canada.
Stouffer has run the Explorers group locally for the past 25 years, which has led to girls continuing into CGIT with Jenner as their leader.
She said the younger girls in her Explorers group are excited to come and have an evening with friends.
Jenner explained that Explorers and CGIT are on the same night, so girls get used to having plans on Tuesdays, and the groups interact to ensure they are not intimidated to move on to CGIT.
They believe that helped keep CGIT alive in the city.
Resources that were once shared through a national organization, which disbanded many years ago, no longer exist and have left group leaders to do research and find their own supports.
“It was a lot easier to do things when somebody up higher was feeding you all the resources,” said Stouffer.
Even though only two groups are active, the annual meeting still draws previous leaders from across Canada.
“They don't even have groups anymore, and their (provincial) associations have dissolved, but they still want to be part of what's going on,” said Jenner.
Every Christmas, the current CGIT girls and many alumni gather for the Vesper Service.
Singing, acting, and public speaking are all part of the service; they are then joined by the Alumni for the candle-lighting experience.
About 50 CGIT girls attend and participate in the service in Grande Prairie every year.
Although CGIT is ending, Stouffer hopes the annual Vesper Service will continue here.
Service to the community
“Many of the girls that have gone through the program have been people who have been very active in the community,” said Stouffer.
CGIT girls vow to "cherish health, seek truth, know God, serve others and thus, with help, become the girl God would have me be.”
Jenner said the programming is based on that vow.
To cherish health, the girls will do activities such as swimming and camping; to seek truth, the girls are taught how to research topics, first aid, and the dangers of bullying; to know God, girls are taught about the meaning of Christian holidays and will hear stories from the Bible.
The girls also do outreach; the current group recently visited Wild Rose Manor to do Easter crafts with the residents and sing a few “silly songs”.
Additionally, they gathered food for the food bank and then got a tour of how the local food bank works.
Jenner said many of the girls didn’t realize the severity of food insecurity in the community.
The group also fundraises for international projects.
Guidelines to life
Stouffer and Jenner have had the privilege of seeing their daughters and granddaughters graduate from the program.
After nearly 50 years, the duo has decided it is time to stop, noting that they can graduate a majority of their girls currently in the program.
“I was hoping to go 50 years … and once I'm there and I'm with the girls, I love it, I love my teenagers,” said Jenner.
She said the room went quiet when they announced the closure to the current CGIT group.
“One girl was Brenda's granddaughter, and she said, ‘Thank you for doing this, this long, for us.’”
The duo described how much they love leading the girls and expressed their love of being with all of them.
“What I enjoyed about CGIT was I got to sing and learn new songs,” said Jenner.
“I enjoyed building programs around current situations in the news and keeping the girls up to date on the world around them.
“I really enjoyed all the fun and silly times … weekend camps, sleepovers in the church, tobogganing, crafts galore, and being with that age group kept me in the know of what was going on in their world.”
“It's been rewarding, and it's been fun, and we certainly often have girls comment on what a difference we made for them,” said Stouffer. “That's rewarding to know that you did something right.”
“It's been very difficult to think about not having that; it's a life-changing event for me,” she said.
“It's just been a labour of love for a lot of years.”
Still, the message of CGIT will live on in its graduates to cherish health, seek truth, know God, and serve others.
“Follow those four guidelines in life; you've got it covered.”