The Girl Scouts of Western Pennsylvania recently completed a long-range property assessment to decide which of its 15 council-owned or leased camps to maintain, develop or sell.

Camp Yough in Elizabeth Township, the only Girl Scout-owned camp in Allegheny County, is one of the properties under consideration. But Mary Palko, a senior Girl Scout in Baldwin-Whitehall Girl Scout Troop 51200, and a lot of other former and current Girl Scouts, doesn't want to see it closed.

The Seton-La Salle sophomore started a Facebook page in November to rally support for keeping the camp open. The group has amassed more than 350 followers. Mary, 15, also has written letters to the council and encouraged others to do the same.

The board of the Girl Scouts of Western Pennsylvania will decide at its March 20 meeting which properties to sell, which to maintain and how to transition the properties. The board held public meetings in the fall to tell Girl Scouts about the process and to solicit feedback.

Mary has three older brothers and three older sisters and, because all of them were Scouts, she has been visiting Camp Yough for as long as she can remember.

"It's just nice and kind of peaceful," she said.

Camp Yough, on 90 acres near a residential area, has three lodges, nine smaller cabins, an amphitheater, hiking trail and tetherball and volleyball courts. Mary said her troop visits the camp about two or three times a year and also takes part in Camp Co-ed, an event for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

Jay Krunszyinsky, chief administrative officer for the Girl Scouts of Western Pennsylvania, said the organization knows that many Girl Scouts have attachments to the camps.

"There's a lot of passion here, and I understand that," he said. "All these camps are near and dear to all our volunteers and our girls."

The council began looking at the costs and benefits of the 15 camps at the beginning of 2009. Camp Yough has several buildings, so it has fairly high operating costs, Mr. Krunszyinsky said.

In conducting its review, the council also surveyed more than 3,000 Girl Scouts, parents and troop leaders to find out what programs and features they wanted in a camp. The most popular responses were swimming, sports, horseback riding, cooking out, rock climbing and arts and crafts.

Camp Yough lacks many of the amenities Girl Scouts are looking for in a camping experience, according to the survey, but some have argued that the camp's simplicity is what makes it worth saving.

"I learned everything I know about camping from Camp Yough," said Lori Achtzehn of White Oak, who started going to the camp in the 1960s when she was a young girl and has returned many times as a leader.

"This is for girls who like to just camp, and especially for the younger girls who have never gone camping before," she said.

Other venues offer swimming and horseback riding, but Camp Yough is a place to hike and camp, Mary said.

"When you go to camp, you don't go so you can shower all the time and be clean and live in your own little world. You go so you can experience things you can't experience very day," she said.

"I would be absolutely crushed and heartbroken if they closed that camp," Ms. Achtzehn said. "I feel that there's a lot of people who went there that want their girls to have the same experience they had."

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