February marks the official start of cookie sales. You may have heard of Girl Scouts in your first-grade classroom, but have you ever researched what troop you could get involved in?
Girl Scouts is a development organization that allows young girls to promote a sisterhood of courage, confidence, and character. Troops come together once or twice a month to build a better relationship with the community. Most young leaders begin their involvement when they are first graders, recognized as “Daisy”. When you start as a “Daisy,” the girls’ primary focus is creating friendships through special welcoming events such as gift baskets for the local women’s shelter. It is optional to climb the leadership ladder; however, with more experience comes more expectations.
Once the holiday celebrations end, troops begin their most extensive project of the year, which everyone knows is selling the infamous Girl Scout cookies. Girls go around and focus on their target audience: families, friends, and teachers. The traditional way of selling cookies has always been a pamphlet describing each cookie, ingredients, and price per box. With technology consuming our ways of developing social skills, troops have begun using an online ordering system. Olivia Czupkowski, once known as a “Daisy,” explains, “My personal experience with selling cookies through a pamphlet will always have a special place in my heart as it reminds me of where I started.”
Nine options of cookies are available: Adventurefuls, Lemon-Ups, Trefoils, Do-si-dos, Samoas, Tagalongs, Thin Mints, Girl Scout S’mores, and Toffee-tastic. But if you ask social studies teacher Mr. Esposito at Danbury High School, he claims, “Thin Mints are for people with no personality.” Currently, all nine cookie options are priced at $6 per box. In previous years, S’mores and Toffee-tastic have always been more expensive, with S’mores being a new flavor and Toffee-tastic being the only gluten-free option available. Before the current class of juniors and seniors went to middle school, the price per cookie box was $4. With the COVID-19 pandemic and natural inflation, these prices have risen substantially for a community-led organization.
This article is not to convince you to buy cookies if a Girl Scout comes to your house, but rather to respect this youth organization for bringing their dreams to life and working together to build a better world. Girl Scout communities, thank you for giving countless girls from different schools the opportunity to give back and be a part of something that provides a new perspective in a world that is not always welcoming.
