If you like your Girl Scout cookies gourmet style, you’ll want to be at Dessert Before Dinner this Saturday, September 27, at Caesars Palace. While mingling, sipping cocktails and bidding in the silent auction, event attendees get to sample desserts that local chefs will make in a baking competition based on a Girl Scout cookie. Dinner follows, along with inspirational speeches by local women of note, all of which raises money for Girls Scouts of Southern Nevada.
It’s Liz Ortenburger’s second time hosting the event as CEO. In advance of her major annual fundraiser, the scout-in-chief talked to Desert Companion about her vision for the local organization and, of course, cookies.
You came to Las Vegas for the top job at Girls Scouts of Southern Nevada in September 2013. What drew you to the position?
I’d been with Girl Scouts in the early part of my career, then went back to graduate school, and then was with the YMCA. I felt I was ready to step into the CEO seat and use what I’d learned in graduate school and put into practice at the Y to take an organization to another place.
What place is that?
Our traditional model has been two to three adults taking on groups of 10-15 girls. It’s a 250-300 hour time commitment, which is difficult for a working parent to handle. We looked at the model and asked how we could make it work in today’s terms. As a mom, when I’m signing my kids up for programs, the first question I ask is, when and where. We couldn’t answer that for Girl Scouts, so we had to spread out the volunteer work and then identify a time and place where programs could happen for your daughter.
And you’ve added an emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), right?
In our 103 years, we have updated our program many times. The program we focus on now has STEM as one of five parts of the core curriculum. It makes sense not only for our world that our girls live in, but for the girls as well. These are topics girls can take and, in an all-girl environment, practice, really dig into and investigate, and develop further. … We ran a STEM-focused day camp this summer, and they built hovercrafts out of balloons and CDs. It’s incredible to see their minds come alive while exploring an advanced technology and seeing how it could work on a larger scale.
What’s your favorite part about Dessert Before Dinner?
I think any CEO would be remiss if she didn’t say dollars to support the great work her organization is doing in the community. But the really exciting piece for me is to see folks who don’t associate things like STEM with Girl Scouts learn about all the different things that we do.
You mean you’re not just cookie sales?
That’s a big part of what we do, but it’s the cornerstone of a larger financial literacy curriculum. … My kids are in soccer. I pay for that. Girl Scouts have the opportunity to fund their way and do amazing things with the dollars they raise. This year, a girl used her product sale money and community donations to go to Mexico and build a sustainable drinking water system in a rural town. That is changing the world. Cookies are the foundation for that to happen.
For information about or tickets to Dessert Before Dinner, visit
dessertbeforedinner.org or call 702-932-1910.
