CANTON — More than 500 local Girl Scouts will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the national organization Saturday with a parade through downtown Canton and an afternoon of events at Heritage Park.

The parade will start at 11 a.m. at Academy Street and go up East Main Street through downtown, then down North Street and on to Heritage Park.

When the Scouts end the parade at Heritage Park they will enjoy a picnic lunch, swaps and sing-alongs at the city venue.

About 50 troops are participating and each troop will commemorate an era of Girl Scouting during its 100 years of history.

Terri Simmons, the event chair for the Star Lily Service Unit, said the parade serves to showcase the importance of the history of Girl Scouts.

Simmons said the public is welcome to come out and cheer on all of the Girl Scouts as they march into the next century of Girl Scout history.

“As a tribute to our rich history, we are asking troops to select a decade and make signs and banners highlighting the achievements and milestones that occurred in that time period,” Simmons said.

Simmons said on the same day, troops throughout the country will gather in Savannah to celebrate, where Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low began the organization for girls March 12, 1912.

Today, Girl Scouts of the United States of America has a membership of more than 3.2 million girls and adults, according to www.girlscouts.org.

Also, more than 50 million women in the country today are Girl Scout alumnae.

Phyllis Miller, leader of Troop 2658, will be walking with her Scouts in the parade this weekend. The sixth-grade girls, called Cadettes, participated in a lock-in last weekend to make banners and signs for the event.

“Most of us have been together since the first grade,” Miller said.

The troop of 11 is now spread among a few schools, including Freedom Middle School, Cherokee Charter Academy and Mill Springs Academy in Alpharetta.

“The girls all decided as soon as (organizers) started planning the parade last year that they wanted to participate,” Miller said.

She said her troop’s excitement was spiked by a mother-daughter trip to Savannah last year, where the girls took a tour of Low’s birthplace and saw all of the city’s preparations for this year’s anniversary.

“Even in 2011, everyone was gearing up for next year’s big celebration,” Miller said.

Miller said the event is important to her and her two daughters, Jordan, 12, and Julia, 9 — both Girl Scouts —because the organization has such a strong foundation for generations of women and provides positive role models for young girls.

“I was a Girl Scout, my mother was a Girl Scout,” she said. “My mom grew up in Panama and still has her uniform from when she was a girl.”

Within the next couple of months, Troop 2758 will be going to Camp Pine Acres in Acworth and attending the premiere of the movie “The Hunger Games” together. In the past, they’ve spent the night at Zoo Atlanta and taken scuba diving classes at Sea Ventures in Alpharetta.

Miller said she’s enjoyed watching all of the girls grow through the years and have unique opportunities because of the organization.

“It’s great to have a group of sixth-grade girls still excited to be Girl Scouts,” Miller said. “We’re pretty proud of that.”