Melinda Caroll (born April 4, 1952, Jacksonville, Florida) is a singer, composer, record producer, recording artist, and lifetime Member of Girl Scouts. She has created and produced music for Girl Scouts since 1989.
One Warm Coat started out in 1992 as a Thanksgiving Weekend coat drive in San Francisco. Since then, more than 1 million coats have been donated in thousands of local communities across North America. The "warm coats" theme came about when Caroll was asked by One Warm Coat to create a theme song about the charitable project.
"My magical journey with Girl Scout and Guides Music, began with a song I wrote in 1989 in 30 minutes, called "We Change the World." For the next 7 years, I led a 22-girl choir, Na Hokulele, and was also the leader of my daughter's Girl Scout Troop #755 for eight years. These experiences led to the development and release of my first CD, Girl Scouts Greatest Hits, Vol 1, We Change the World in 1997. This music series was born out of my own need to find quality recordings of age-appropriate, relevant songs and music for my girls. Already a professional singer-songwriter, it was natural for me to compose new songs to fulfill that need and to continue to collect new songs to share from my travels around the world."
— Melinda Caroll
Caroll has performed live before hundreds of thousands of Girl Scouts and has played for distinguished guests including members of the United States Congress, Secretary of State, Colin Powell and members of the President's cabinet when her song, Every Girl, Everywhere, debuted at the Girl Scouts' 90th Birthday celebration Gala at the National Building Museum in Washington DC on March 12, 2002.
In 2012, her composition Ignite was chosen as theme song for the 100th Anniversary Celebration of Girl Scouts USA.
Caroll is the artistic director of When We Shine, a non-profit network of multimedia artists.[1] In 2018, Caroll led the children of Pōmaikaʻi Elementary School in Kahului, Hawaii through the entire process of creating a CD called Songs for Change.[2]
