The Girl Scouts are known for building community, and that’s just what many of the girls living at The Row hotel needed.

“Girls Scouts is my second family,” Girl Scout Laura Valentina said.

What You Need To Know

  • Girl Scout Troop 6000 serves children living at The Row hotel, which has been a home for hundreds of migrant families in the last year

  • Girls said the group has helped them make friends, be empowered and learn respect for themselves and others

  • Its members will soon be moving on though, forced to leave The Row due to Mayor Eric Adams' 60-day limit on shelter stays for migrant families

Several days a week, Girl Scout Troop 6000 meets at The Row hotel, which has been home for hundreds of migrant families over the last year-and-a-half. 

The families include Valentina, who came from Columbia and has been living at The Row hotel for more than a year.

“My favorite part of the Girl Scouts is the people of the program, and learning new words and things,” she said.

Soon, these children will have to leave The Row hotel, under a policy enacted by Mayor Eric Adams to limit migrant family shelter stays to 60 days. Some of them will reapply for shelter and be placed at other hotels in the city.

Others, like Valentina’s family, will leave town. She said they’re heading to Indianapolis in 12 days, and that she’s excited to see somewhere new.

But advocates fear the policy will destabilize children, especially at school. It’ll also mean saying goodbye to Troop 6000, which will serve the next group of girls to live at the hotel.

Meridith Maskara, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Greater New York, reminded the children of the classic Girl Scouts song: “Make new friends, but keep the old.”

“We may move from troop to troop. I moved from state to state,” she told the girls. “We moved from different places, but we remain Girl Scott sisters — we keep each other with us.”

The children will be able to keep in touch through a first-of-its-kind virtual Spanish language troop, according to the Girl Scouts.

Girls in the troop told NY1 the program had helped them learn to make friends, respect themselves and one another, and feel empowered.

Officials from the Adams administration visited the girls Thursday night, praising the children as the city’s future and the Girl Scouts for helping them build bonds just days before the administration’s own policy will force them to move.

“Some of those families who have been here for some time, they know they have to, you know, move on to the next step in their journey, find permanent housing. This is temporary, because there are many more that are coming that also need that help,” Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro said.