Girl Scouts in the St. Croix River Valley got some hands-on experience working with power tools and professionals in the trades on Wednesday.

At Camp Lakamaga, dozens of scouts rolled up their sleeves to build a mini golf course from the ground up, working with drills, saws, measuring tape and professional tradeswomen as part of a program aimed at breaking stereotypes and building skills.

"A lot of folks think about Girl Scouts and they think cookies, camps and crafts," said Girl Scouts River Valleys CEO Marisa Williams. "We are so much more than that."

The annual Power Girls camp introduces girls to careers in the skilled trades, fields traditionally dominated by men and encourages them to explore career pathways that don't require a four-year college degree.

"When you think about the trades and using your hands and getting creative, we want to make sure that we're exposing our girls early to what that looks like," Williams said.

For some, the power of the program was clear in their first hesitant steps and their eventual excitement.

"You see them first kind of get discouraged and feel like they don't want to participate. And then you give them just that little pointer to make it easier, and then when they do it successfully, their whole attitude changes and they want to do the next one, do the next one," said Artemis McAllister, a carpenter with Ryan Companies.

Girl Scout Lateefat Sowemimo was excited to get to work but acknowledged it wasn't going to be easy.

"There's like a lot of steps to it and a lot of measuring," she said. "It takes a lot of time and perseverance."

"They're learning confidence, they're also working as a team. They're doing problem solving, they're learning how to read plans, which is great for their spatial awareness," said Beth Duyvejonck, of Opus. "I'd say confidence is really the most fun to watch."

That confidence buzzed throughout the camp. 

"It's all women, there's probably only one male here," said Girl Scout Priya Homagai with excitement. "So that shows that shows that women can power anything."

Girl Scout Lauren Estis agreed.

"It really shows that any gender can do anything and that we're all powerful and we can all do something that's out of our comfort zone," she said.

When complete, the mini golf course will stay at Camp Lakamaga for all future scouts to use.