A new season is here: the season of Girl Scout cookies.
There are eight different types of Girl Scout cookies from Little Brownie Bakers; Thin Mints, Samoas, Do-si-dos, Tagalongs, Savanah Smiles, and Trefoils are all $5 while S’mores and Toffee-tastics are $6. This price difference is due to the two “specialty” cookies costing almost twice as much to make as the other cookies.
To sell the cookies, troops have to get them from somewhere.
“There is a cookie warehouse for each council; ours is Girl Scouts of Northern California. Before each cookie season, each troop submits a request for the number of cases they want to sell. There is an event in each county or city so that one adult per Girl Scout troop can pick up their cookies. Then, the girls from each troop can go to that adult’s house to pick up the cookies they want to sell,” said Katherine Emerson, an 11th-year Girl Scout.
Girl Scouts often make a substantial amount of money due to how irresistible the cookies can be, especially to high school students.
“Girl Scouts are all over campus selling cookies. I wasn’t planning on it, but I bought a box of Samoas yesterday. It is just so hard to resist the temptation to buy them,” said Ben Pasion, a sophomore at Carlmont high school.
The main goal of Girl Scouts is to build leadership skills in girls.
— Ana Alvarez-Rutz
The majority of the money that they collect goes towards the baking and transportation of the cookies, yet the leftover money helps to fund various Girl Scout programs, such as a Girl Scout destinations trip to Costa Rica, where the scouts will be doing volunteer work, according to Emerson.
However, funding the program is not the only purpose of selling the cookies.
“The main goal of Girl Scouts is to build leadership skills in girls. At the high school level, many of us are working towards our Gold Award, which involves individuals creating and completing community projects that are long-term and impactful,” said Ana Alvarez-Rutz, an eighth-year Girl Scout.
The popular brand has been selling cookies since 1917, five years after its founding on March 12, 1912. The selling of Girl Scout cookies has continued for the last 100 years.
Today, there are 2.6 million Girl Scouts, all working to learn and to pass on the important skills of business, finance, and communication, to future generations.
“The Girl Scouts cookies program is more than just selling boxes of cookies. It really teaches you so much about setting goals, objectives, and how to have good business sense,” said Sylvia Acevedo, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA.
