Some people find their friends at school. Others at work. Three women, who would later become known as The Girlfriends, found each other in a tent outside Philadelphia, at a place called Camp Laughing Waters.

It was, as they say, an inauspicious beginning.

For several days each year, Girl Scouts of Southeastern Pennsylvania turn Laughing Waters into Camp VIP, a place where business leaders mentor senior Girl Scouts.

Last year, Julie Victor, Barbara Cottman Jackson and Ellen Foley found themselves housed in a tent, where they became close friends despite withering temperatures of about 100 degrees and intermittent downpours.

The women’s job was to share their life experience with teenage Girl Scouts, called VIPs, in an effort to expand the girls’ life dreams.

In fact, the adult campers also develop strong friendships and expand their dreams. From hindsight, the first night of camp held all the ingredients to The Girlfriends dream. Barbara, a retired teacher, announced by tent light that she was a jazz singer. Julie, a fitness goddess and business leader, asked her to sing. Ellen, a journalist with no obvious skills, did the only thing she could think of. She danced. And so The Girlfriends became known as the "party tent" and the rest is history.

By the end of camp, Julie had correctly assessed that Barbara and Ellen needed to improve their fitness programs and in the months after camp, she helped them learn about weight training. It occurred to Ellen that many other women, who didn’t attend camp, could share in the conversations the three were having, and she created the Web site, The Girlfriends’ Guide to Getting Fit, complete with a weblog through which others interested in fitness could chime in. Now two months old, the Web site is a work in progress. Julie needed to pull back because of business demands and Heather Hoehn, also a fitness goddess, took her place as the blog’s fitness expert in late January, 2003.

Yvette Ousley, an editor at the Philadelphia Daily News with a strong interest in fitness, also joined in January after the editing demands made it clear that Ellen would not be able to keep her day job. Yvette now coordinates the feature.

The web feature has tackled serious issues such as thyroid disease and more meat-and-potatoes concerns such as low calorie menus for Super Bowl Sunday. Each week a local luminary gives advice on a fitness topic in Keeping It Real and a calendar gives viewers tips on how to get moving by highlighting interesting fitness and health events. As the dreams of those campers, turned girlfriends, go from plans to reality, so too will The Girlfriends’ Guide to Getting Fit change and expand.

You can give your suggestions on how The Girlfriends’ Guide can improve by writing the girlfriends at girlfriends@phillynews.com.

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