DAVIS (CBS13) – Girls are signing up by the hundreds to become Boy Scouts in Northern California.

Northern California’s Golden Empire Council of the Boy Scouts is expecting 1,600 girls to become Boy Scouts by the end of 2019.

CBS13 spoke to one Girl Scout troop in Davis that will be co-registering as a Boy Scout Troop too — becoming the new faces of a new era in scouting.

“I’m just really excited to learn more,” 6th grader Melissa Meux said.

“We’re both created equal,” 3rd grader Nicole Garcia said.

“I think its pretty cool,” 6th grader Amara O’Brien said.

The three young ladies are part of a Davis group led by scout leader Brian Meux.

“The Boy Scout community has been extremely welcoming,” Meux said.

Meux has been their Girl Scout leader for years. Now he’s co-registering this troop to be in the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts.

“We’re working out of the Boy Scout handbook, the basic scout skills, the fire building, the first aid, the land navigation,” Meux said.

It is a new opportunity these girls are quickly embracing.

“I would really like to earn some merit badges,” O’Brien said.

The girls are entering an organization that had been a boys-only brand for more than 100 years.

“I was a Boy Scout and I like to associate with that terminology,” Meux said. “And I think our girls are wrapping their heads around, you know, what that means–what defines them is what they’re doing in the program not what they’re called.”

They’re closing the gender gap at the grade-school level.

“We’re equals, in a way that we can both be in the same group,” O’Brien said.

The Boy Scouts voted to allow girls last fall.

The exact start date for the new admissions has not been announced.