Troop 19 user Josie Provencher tosses a log during the log hurling section of this Klondike Derby. (Jonathan Wilson for WHYY)

It’s Lily Rohner’s very first time contending when you look at the Klondike Derby in the Horseshoe Scout Reservation in Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania. Think of the derby being a battle of this bands for scouts. Troops pull embellished sleds filled up with gear round the camp, doing scouting tasks — such as for example first-aid and fire building — for points.

Champions have ribbons and bragging liberties.

Lily, 10, and her number of friends understand they’re at a drawback. That’s as it’s only their 2nd time as formal people of Boy Scouts of America, so they really have actuallyn’t discovered every thing a few of their male peers have actually.

As a consequence of the organization’s decision to open up its flagship system to girls, the Boy Scouts changed its title to Scouts BSA on Feb. 1. The advertising company remains the Boy Scouts of America and troops inside the Scouts BSA system are solitary sex, all-boy or all-girl, many years 11 to 17. The troops intermingle at events just like the derby.

A couple of thousand girls have actually already signed up for Scouts BSA across the nation, in line with the company.

But during the Horseshoe Scout Reservation at the time following the title modification took effect, Scouts BSA Troop 19, situated in Marshallton, Chester County, could be the only girls troop noticeable in an ocean of greater than 100 males. That’s Lily’s group — 12 girls total.

She does not mind that Troop 19 could be the only all-girls troop at the derby.