Girl Scouts Amplified Voices Podcast Shares Stories Beyond the Cookie Booth
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Asia Tabb
AIRED; February 25, 2026
Listen to the podcast to hear the full conversation.
A new podcast from the Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania is turning up the volume on stories that often go unheard.
Girl Scouts Amplified Voices, hosted by Director of Marketing and Communications Cathy Hirko, was created to spotlight the experiences of Girl Scouts, volunteers and supporters across Central Pennsylvania. Now 16 episodes in, Hirko says the mission is simple: put a microphone in front of people whose stories deserve to be told.
“The whole reason behind the podcast is to kind of share what the Girl Scouts are doing to people who love Girl Scouts and want to support Girl Scouts,” Hirko said. “There are so many stories out there that people are not aware of what the Girl Scouts do. We’re always very proud of our Cookie Program, but Girl Scout is so much more than our Cookie program.”
The idea for the podcast grew out of Hirko’s earlier work at the Central Penn Business Journal, where she launched a newsletter highlighting women entrepreneurs and business leaders.
“The value of sharing women leader voices in the community really resonated,” she said. “Putting a microphone in front of them was so important for me.”
When she later joined the Girl Scouts, she saw an opportunity to carry that storytelling approach into a new space. With support from President and CEO Janet Donovan, the organization even built a podcast studio into its new headquarters on Trindle Road in Camp Hill.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you gotta get in there and do it,” Hirko recalled being told when she was weighing the idea of launching the show.
Since then, the podcast has featured Gold Award recipients, longtime volunteers and Girl Scout alumni whose stories illustrate the organization’s broader impact.
One of Hirko’s favorite episodes features Maura, a Girl Scout from York County who is on the autism spectrum. When Hirko first met her in 2022, Maura was shy and spoke very little. A year later, she returned to sit behind the podcast microphone.
“She talks like nobody’s business now,” Hirko said, laughing. “She made me laugh so much.” Maura’s mother credits Girl Scouts with helping her daughter become more social and engaged in her community.
Another memorable guest was Chris Dewar, a troop leader who has volunteered for more than 50 years. Dewar shared how her experience managing troops helped her land a leadership role in her professional career after a supervisor encouraged her to recognize the management skills she had developed through Girl Scouts.
“You talk all about how many Girl Scouts you manage,” Dewar’s boss told her, according to the podcast. “I want your resume on my desk tomorrow.”
For Hirko, these stories underscore the organization’s mission.
“Girl Scouts builds girls of courage, confidence and character to make the world a better place,” she said. “And that’s exactly what they’re doing every day.”
She points to Gold Award Girl Scout May Lynn Poletti as another example. Poletti, a Central York graduate, told listeners that Girl Scouts was “exclusively the reason” she pursued leadership roles. She later served as master of ceremonies for a Girl Scout advocacy event at the state Capitol and is now studying a STEM field at Messiah University.
The podcast has also highlighted younger scouts, including elementary school girls from southern York County who created 100 care bags for pediatric cancer patients at Penn State Hershey in memory of a classmate.
“These are elementary school students,” Hirko said. “Leadership doesn’t start at when people are 30. It starts when they’re eight, and Girl Scouts knows that.”
For Hirko, giving girls and volunteers a platform is about more than content creation. It’s about confidence.
“There’s a lot of people out there who do some amazing things,” she said. “But they don’t think they’re doing anything special — which is just, they absolutely are doing incredible things.”
Through Girl Scouts Amplified Voices, those stories are no longer flying under the radar — they’re being heard loud and clear.
