What a Cookie Can Do

Cookies Sales do so much for each girl.  At troop level we are teaching them how to set goals and work to achieve them, about money management, and how to interact with strangers in a parent supervised situation.  After cookies sales are done, the girls work together to decide how to spend the money they have earned.  We follow the Share, Save and Spend strategy.  The girls will vote on a charity to give 10% back to our community.  The girls will save some to help pay for scouting next year, and then they will vote on a fun field trip to take together with the remainder of the funds.  The more they earn the bigger the field trip. 

After paying the bakers, 100% of each cookie stays in their local council.  The council provides help resources for the leaders, local council locations and the camping properties.  The average cost per girl in San Diego is $256 a year, but girls only pay $12 membership.  So even if someone says that they troops don't get that much money from a box, you can see there is so much more that a girl does get from being a Girl Scout.

All Girl Scout Councils have a donation cookie program.  I love this because it teaches the girls about helping others.  Here in San Diego we have Operation Thin Mint.  It was started in 2002 and the girls have donated 1.6 million boxes to the soldiers overseas. With every box that a girl sells she writes a thank you note to the soldier that receives it.

We've already had people asking us if they can still give to the soldiers.  I've also heard of girls at booth sales that have soldiers approach them and thank the girls.  Then they talk about how excited they were to receive a box of cookies while in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Japan, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, Western Pacific and Indian Ocean.  The soldiers tell us about how they received a box of cookies while overseas and how it brought back memories of home.

It is great for the girls to see that they do make a big difference.   

Even if you can't buy from BG, I encourage you to find a local girl scout troop and give them your support.  You can find a local troop selling cookies here.

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BG and I have been having fun setting her goal and tracking how far she is to reaching it.  BG's goal is to sell 300 boxes of cookies and 24 boxes of Operation Thin Mint.  Her goals are driven by the  incentives.  They get pretty cool as the cookie count goes up and they are all cumulative.

She originally wanted to set her goal at 350 boxes.  I lowered it to 300 because I thought 50 boxes a week was more manageable and I want her to feel self-satisfaction if she goes above and beyond her goal and reaches 350.  So far she has sold 59 boxes, 3 are OTM.