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<\/a>Eight-year-old Cub Scout Baileigh Rohde<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
By Jason Devaney
\nNEWSMAX<\/p>\n
The Boy Scouts are officially open to girls, the organization confirmed Friday.<\/p>\n
Now called the Scouts BSA, the Scouts are open to boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 17.<\/p>\n
“I could not be more excited for what this means for the next generation of leaders in our nation,” the group’s chief scout executive Michael B. Surbaugh said Friday,\u00a0according to CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Through Scouts BSA, more young people than ever before \u2014 young women and men \u2014 will get to experience the benefits of camaraderie, confidence, resilience, trustworthiness, courage, and kindness through a time-tested program that has been proven to build character and leadership.”<\/p>\n The Cub Scouts, a program for younger children, began accepting girls in its ranks last year. More than 77,000 girls have signed up, CNN reported.<\/p>\n The Girl Scouts of the USA is no fan of the Boy Scouts’ move, however. In a statement Friday to CNN, it said the “benefit of the single-gender environment has been well-documented by educators, scholars, other girl- and youth-serving organizations, and Girl Scouts and their families.”<\/p>\n In 2017, the organization ripped the Boy Scouts for allowing the opposite gender to join its ranks.<\/p>\n “It’s a potentially dangerous and bad idea,”\u00a0a Girl Scouts spokesperson said<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Girl Scouts do not allow boys to join.<\/p>\n