Patti Garibay, a trailblazer and founder of American Heritage Girls, joins Mike Train to tackle the pressing issue of loneliness that affects 61 percent of young adults. In their conversation, they explore the findings of a startling Harvard study on loneliness and discuss how American Heritage Girls is cultivating environments for authentic friendships. Patti also highlights the importance of grandparents in addressing this epidemic and introduces a vital resource, the e-book Raising Godly Girls Guide to Loneliness, aimed at combating this crisis from a faith-based perspective.
00:00:00 Introduction to Patti Garibay and the Loneliness Issue
00:12:09 Getting the E-book and Further Involvement
00:12:38 Conclusion: Impact of American Heritage Girls
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, it’s Mike Train with Crawford Media Group. Today, we’re joined by Patti Garibay. Patti is the founder and executive director of American Heritage Girls, and that’s A-G-H, or A-H-G. I’ll cut that out. Anyways, and Patti, you’re author of the book, Why Curse the Darkness When You Can Light a Candle. Hey, thanks for joining us today, taking the time. It is my pleasure. Thanks for having me. We want to talk a little bit about a loneliness e-book that you’ve got at American Heritage Girls. And there’s a recent study that says the U.S. drops to its lowest ever ranking in happiness report. Tell us a little bit about that and also to kind of weave in American Heritage Girls so anybody that doesn’t know learns a little bit more about.
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. This whole thing about the U.S. being the 24th in the list of happiest countries around the globe is very disappointing. Yet it corroborates the findings that we have discovered as well via a Harvard study that was recently done, which finds that 61 percent of young adults experience. experience serious loneliness on a regular basis. Even the former Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, has released a national warning against an ongoing loneliness epidemic. And extreme isolation in kiddos is really very dangerous to their mental health. And even though we are more connected than ever, Mike, via social media and our phones, we are lonelier than ever. So what might that mean to us as parents and grandparents and even friends? Well, that might mean that we need to go back to the normal connections, friendships, seeing one another, being together, not spending all of our time on our devices, but rather be in a community of of like-minded believers to be able to strengthen our mental health and to be wired and to execute that wiring that God created within each and every one of us by being together.
SPEAKER 02 :
It seems like American Heritage Girls would be an ideal way for kids and grandkids to do that because at home, they’re just going to be staring at their phone. You’re just asking for trouble. But you get them out involved in service projects and different things. So talk about that. And, again, anything you want to add about the happiness report, unhappiness report.
SPEAKER 01 :
The unhappiness report. That’s right. American Heritage Girls serves girls ages 5 to 18. We have troops all over the country in all 50 states. And here is a band of sisters, so to speak, where girls can come together with like-minded girls to be able to experience the out-of-doors leadership opportunities, service, as you mentioned. Even badge acquisition, learning new life skills so that they have a framework for adulting that will help to comfort their anxious minds for the future as well. So there’s so many offerings within the American Heritage Program. One of the things that we have noticed is this loneliness epidemic is so real that we have created a new e-book. That is free to your listeners called Raising Godly Girls Guide to Loneliness, which will help us as parents talk about our kiddos, talk with the kiddos about why are you feeling so alone? Well, how is this manifesting itself? And also, what kind of alerts you need to look for? within your daughter if she seems very depressed and lonely because we know that those two characteristics often lead to suicidal ideation, and suicidal ideation is a very dangerous place to be. So American Heritage Girls, visit us at AmericanHeritageGirls.org, and that free e-book, a pop-up will be there so that you can go ahead and sign up to deliver that to your inbox and be able to discuss this important topic with your precious daughter.
SPEAKER 02 :
Patty, that makes it easy. And by the way, we’re speaking with Patty Garibay. She’s the founder of American Heritage Girls. And Patty, we have a lot of grandparents that listen to the station. We have parents too, but those grandparents tend to say, you know, we can see something’s happening with our grandkids that maybe the parents are just busy and they don’t necessarily see it. So grandparents, I think, have a special gift to get involved in this.
SPEAKER 01 :
They really do. And there’s a wisdom there because they’ve raised their own children and perhaps they’ve seen it before. But it almost appears clearer. The lens is clearer as a grandparent. And I, being a grandparent of 11, I can see these kinds of things in my kids, in my grandkids, probably more than I could my four kids when I was raising them. So grandparents, you do have a bird’s eye view to this. And there is no harm in you talking to your grandchildren about what it means to have friends, how important that is, how important it is to put those cell phones away and get out in the beautiful out of doors that will build resilience and all kinds of wonderful grit that we all need in order to really live life. And that’s what American Heritage Girls offers. So check it out. Again, AmericanHeritageGirls.org. And also Raising Godly Girls. We have a three-time-a-week podcast called Raising Godly Girls. And you’re going to want to check that out, too. It’s a great parenting and grandparenting help for all of those that are in the throes of raising up godly kids.
SPEAKER 02 :
You know, Patty, in the interview notes, one of the things it talks about is loneliness is not God’s plan. And that’s just not what our kids and we are designed for. And it seems like, you know, it seems to me like men’s ministry sometimes do a little bit better with, okay, we have to get the boys out, get them in the wild and blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, whether or not they actually do it, you know, depends. And that’s, of course, there is an organization you and I can mention later that we know will do that in a biblical way. But having girls out and having them have those experiences that kind of fit for them and having friendships and having community, we’ve got to really work with that, don’t we?
SPEAKER 01 :
We truly do. And girls are even more wired than boys for connection with one another. So friendship, when you ask a girl what is the most important and favorite thing about American Heritage Girls to them, it is always the friends that they meet. And these friends end up being the girls that are in their wedding, the girls that celebrate graduations, the birth of their first children. These are lifelong friends that they’re making. And we all know connection is so important. We can no longer just come into our houses and close the garage doors and close ourselves off from society. These studies are scary, Mike. And we really need to take heed of what is going on here in our culture and to turn it back to being that friend. Being that person on that front porch, caring about each other’s families, being the community. Like I said, and you’re absolutely right, Genesis 2.18 declared that it was not good for us to be alone. And thus, Eve was created. So man is not meant to be alone, nor is women, and nor are our children. So they need a company of friends. And American Heritage Girls is one place of many, but one great place to find those friends for your daughter or granddaughter.
SPEAKER 02 :
Tell us about the e-book a little bit more. It’s called A Raising God’s Girl’s Guide, Godly Girl’s Guide, I’ll let you say it, to Loneliness. And there are different needs in there that are addressed, why loneliness is a crisis. So, you know, kind of hits us in the face and says, here’s what we’re facing. Kind of tell us about that and how can we use that guide well?
SPEAKER 01 :
Yes, it’s first understanding why a girl is particularly susceptible to loneliness. And by the way, Mike, we’ve got a whole lot of Raising Godly Girl guides to other issues, such as gender and identity, which is a big issue confronting today. these girls and you know you also got resiliency you’ve got environmental stewardship all these hot button topics we’re addressing from a biblical worldview and and so you’re going to want to capture all of these ebooks but this one in particular and we’re always doing these by the way in response to what’s happening in the culture today is that they have resourceful components that will help create conversation starters because the worst thing we can do is ignore it That’s what we’ve been doing for too long, and that’s why we’re where we are today. What it looks like when a girl’s loneliness is going to metamorphose into a cry for help, the biblical truths about why God wants authentic community for each of us, and just a whole plethora of ideas on how you can talk to your girls, even the introverted ones that may think that they’re okay all alone and don’t want to be around others, why it’s important to find that special friend.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, Patty, since we have you, let’s do a secret. Let’s do one of those tips for parents and grandparents. What are one of the things you talk about in the guide that a parent and a grandparent listening to this interview can say, oh, I can use that right now, and by the way, I’m going to do it?
SPEAKER 01 :
First of all, be intentional about helping your daughter find a friend or some friends. And this takes work. Just as we care about our daughters perhaps being able to perform musically or play soccer or anything, the most important thing is for her to find a godly friend that will help her to navigate the culture of today, the storms of life. And that requires us to help. So that might mean bring your daughter to various places. Make sure she’s at church. Make sure she’s doing some things outside of church and outside of school, that she’s being able to do some things to build friendships and make sure it’s fun and not something that’s really laborious and boring or they won’t want to do it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, Patty, as part of that, too, you get to church and instead when your daughter says or granddaughter either way says, I don’t really want to go to youth group. You got to get them in the youth group. Right. Because that youth pastor knows how to get her integrated with the other girls and make that happen.
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. And then go one step further and invite that friend or that person that she’s met at youth group, maybe for some ice cream or maybe for something else that you can do together just to sort of reinforce how important this is in a girl’s life. It is just as important as any other life skill or faith formation is to have a good friend.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that’s super good. How a parent can do that without having the child or grandchild say, you’re Madeline. That’s right. That’s right. So and then another question before we wrap up is what about the introverted, the child that’s kind of, you know, maybe more studious and not as socially comfortable? What do you do there? Because that child or grandchild might be no way am I going to do something with other kids.
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. You know, this is probably the most the largest success point American Heritage Girls has in the story of so many. I was that scared little girl going into that meeting clinging to my mother’s leg. And today I am speaking publicly. This is the metamorphosis, the transformation of American Heritage Girls. Now you do this alongside your introverted daughter. You become closer to your introverted daughter. You start to understand her friends and how she’s wired by seeing her in a social context. This is very helpful to the full formation of her as she grows through the adolescent years. There is nothing more priceless than investing in your own daughter by spending time with her through examples like American Heritage Girls.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so good. Well, again, we’re speaking with Patti Garibay, the founder of American Heritage Girls. And Patti is also an author. Patti, tell us, how do we get the book? How do we get the e-book once again? And how do we plug in with American Heritage Girls?
SPEAKER 01 :
Absolutely. To get the e-books, go to AmericanHeritageGirls.org, and you’ll see a pop-up that will share the information on how to get those books. Or you can go straight to RaisingGodlyGirls.com. And to get my book, which is a story of an ill-equipped mom of four who was called by the Lord to do something really big, and he was so gracious he never showed her what that would look like 30 years later. That is Why Curse the Darkness. When you can light a candle, that can be purchased at Amazon or anywhere books are sold.
SPEAKER 02 :
And when you talk about that, how big it is, it’s now troops with American Heritage Girls serving a total of 684,000 hours. And that’s 2023 numbers. So you’ve got, what, 60,000 girls out there or more now? Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Almost 70,000 now. Yeah, we are growing rapidly. We have over 1,300 troops, which represent 1,300 churches that say, hey, we care about young girls, and we want to have this ministry in our church.
SPEAKER 02 :
So awesome. I want our listeners to know those numbers. We don’t throw numbers out casually. It’s just that really gives them a sense of American Heritage Girls is very involved, very successful. And the bottom line is you see it working for other girls and our children and grandchildren equally. And it can work for your child, too. So same deal. Patty, thanks so much for taking the time with us. You’re such a blessing always. Thank you, Mike. And God bless your listeners as well.
