The International Order of the Rainbow for Girls Explained

The International Order of the Rainbow for Girls, or Rainbow for short, started in the 1920s by a man named Mark Sexson. Since then, this Masonic youth organization has spread to almost every state and several countries as well, including Australia, Germany, Canada, and Aruba.

The main focus of Rainbow is to help young girls age 11-20 build self esteem, leadership skills, public speaking, and good will towards others. Community service is a huge part of Rainbow, with every assembly having their own project as well as each state having a state community service project. Girls can also earn merit bars they can wear on their dress. How the merit bars are earned vary from assembly to assembly.

Rainbow is broken up into assemblies, much like a "troop" in Girl Scouts, except you only have one assembly per general area. An assembly is usually made up of girls from the surrounding towns, however states like Hawaii only have 2-4 assemblies, so obviously their girls are more widespread. There is also an advisory board of adults as well as a Mother Advisor, who is the overseeing adult of the assembly.

Each assembly has 20 jeweled officers. A jeweled officer is one that is bestowed a jeweled necklace with the symbol of her office at installation. She wears the jewel only during meeting and retires it at the next installation. The Worthy Advisor is the highest ranking officer in an assembly. In some states she wears a tiara. She runs meeting as well as sets up a community service project for her term and activities for the members in which to participate. She also has term colors, a theme, and sometimes a quote from a religious text or song. A gavel is a typical installation gift for a new Worthy Advisor since this is how she controls meeting.