It's that time of year again, friends. That glorious 5-week window, where tiny humans in sashes and vests sling cookies at every grocery store, gas station, and lemonade stand-style booth throughout the nation. It's Girl Scout Cookie season. I will give you a sneak peek into the work behind the scenes as the mother of a Girl Scout with ridiculously high sales goals and shed some light on some of the rules they must follow.
Cookie season actually starts in January for troops. Troop Leaders, Scouts, and parents meet to discuss the upcoming sales season. We use previous years' numbers to figure out initial orders for each girl and the troop as a whole, and the prizes per level sold always play a part in sales goals. The Service Unit hosts a Cookie Rally to give Girls tips and tricks on selling and a chance to taste all the cookies!
After our initial order is submitted, we wait for the bakery to whip them up. They get delivered in giant trucks on many pallets, volunteers triple count all the pallets, and then we set out to separate all the cookies into each troop's cookies and sort AGAIN into each girl selling in each troop.
There's a lot of counting.
Let me take a quick moment to give the sweet Troop Leaders and parents a HUGE SHOUT OUT. The amount of time they put in is bananas.
There are a few significant rules for Cookie Sales:
- The Girl Scout MUST do the selling.
- We can NOT post a Girl Scout's link on any public site (Williston Connections, a business page, or anything not set to friends only).
- You may share a Girl Scout's link, but only in a post with a privacy setting set to friends only.
- "bending" any of these rules can disqualify the girl scout, her troop, AND the service unit, and they may lose the right to sell cookies.
- We CAN NOT post where individual scouts will be selling, but we CAN share the Cookie Finder Link, type in your zip code, and it will show you all staffed booths in your area!
In-person sales start Friday, February 17th at 4pm, and although I know you are ready to buy (trust me, these Scouts are ready to sell), PLEASE wait. I promise there is plenty available!
The Girl Scouts learn to count money (I'm a stickler for counting back change), how to keep track of inventory, customer service, and one of the biggest things - How to handle hearing the word No. People aren't always pleasant, and these girls are learning to handle no's with grace.
Now onto the cookies; our Council uses Little Brownie Bakers, and our cookie lineup includes:
Thin Mints - Vegan
Trefoils - Shortbread
Tagalongs- Chocolate Covered Peanutbutter
Samoas- Caramel, Coconut, and Chocolate
Lemon Ups
Do-si-Dos- Oatmeal and Peanutbutter sandwich cookie
Smore's- Microwave for 7 seconds for maximum goodness
Adventurefuls- Caramel, SeaSalt Brownie
Toffee-tastic - Gluten Free Shortbread
Raspberry Rally - The NEWEST addition is ONLY AVAILABLE ONLINE.
Which is your favorite?! Find our Cookietastic Post on Facebook and Instagram for your chance to win a box!!