Girl Scout leader’s fundraiser for Wisconsin crash victims got her fired, she says

A Girl Scout leader who organized fundraisers for three Wisconsin scouts and a parent who were struck and killed while picking up trash has been fired for her efforts, she said in a Facebook post.

Elizabeth Steffel was fired because she went against the Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes council’s fundraising wishes, she said.

The council, though, says it “supports each troop and organization as they honor the girls in whichever way they see fit,” according to a statement obtained by WLUK.

Steffel had worked with other Green Bay leaders “to coordinate a vigil and fundraiser to help the Girl Scout families affected by tragedy in Chippewa Falls earlier this month,” WBAY reported. This included a nationwide vigil and a patch that would honor those who were killed on the highway, Steffel wrote in her post.

“I’m an emotional wreck,” Steffel said while crying on Monday afternoon, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette. “I just got fired this morning.”

Steffel founded Troop 4029 three years ago, the newspaper reported. It has 53 girls.

When Steffel heard about the crash, she said on Facebook, she and a few other leaders and parents “wanted to do something to help these poor families.”

Together, they came up with a patch and a small vigil, the post states. After creating a Facebook event for the fundraiser and event, she was “shocked” by how many people were interested.

So, she went to the council “immediately,” Steffel wrote.

“I brought all the information and wanted to hand it over to council. I never felt I should be representing the entire (council),” she said. “That is not my role or my place.

“The individuals present in that meeting told me that I needed to cancel the vigil and the patch being created for the families,” Steffel continued. “I was told I might be hurting the families with what I was doing. I went home and was ready to do exactly what they asked.”

But before canceling the program, Steffel had a second thought.

“I logged in to Facebook to cancel everything and found my inbox filled with messages from people in the area affected by the tragedy who supported and were thankful for the event and the patch fundraiser,” she wrote. “This is when my dilemma began.”

Steffel wrote that she and the other leaders decided to “go with the wishes of those affected by the tragedy and not by council,” she wrote, and she let the council know.

She says the council told her she is not allowed to use the Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes brand on the events, as it was not a council-approved program.

The fundraising continued.

Then, on Monday, Steffel was called into the human resources office, the Green Bay Press Gazette reported. The council told her she needed to ask people to send their donations to the Girl Scouts Office instead of through her, or she would be dismissed, Steffel said, according to the Press Gazette.

Money donated to the council would be “segregated to support our Council’s efforts in delivering the Girl Scout mission to girls in the Western Region of our Council, specifically the Chippewa Valley,” according to the statement published online by WLUK.

“And I said, ‘OK, I’ll be fired,’ – sticking with ethical principles, I’ll go with the families,” Steffel said, according to the newspaper.

Steffel has since been suspended from the council, WLUK reported.

In the statement released to WLUK, Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes Council said it does not comment on “employment or volunteer status.”