Scouts sell cookies

It’s Girl Scout cookie time – a tradition that has been part of Girl Scouting almost since the organization’s beginning. One story of an early sale of Girl Scout cookies comes from Muskogee, Okla., where a troop baked cookies and sold them in the high school cafeteria as part of a service project in December 1919. Another story has a group of Girl Scouts, in the fall of 1933, baking and selling cookies in the windows of the Philadelphia Gas Company and the Philadelphia Electric Company to assist in building Girl Scout Camp Indian Run. The national Girl Scout organization licensed the first commercial baker in 1936.
Girl Scouts will be taking orders from Friday, Jan. 5, to Monday, Jan. 29, then make delivery of cookies to customers during the month of March. Troops will also be conducting booth sales throughout the council from March 2 through the end of April or while supplies last. In response to consumer requests for a sugar-free cookie, ‘Little Brownies with chocolate chips’ are being introduced. These are in addition to the line of traditional favorites, along with last year’s new Café cookie. If a Girl Scout does not contact you, customers may call the service center for more information at 989-7474 or 800-464-3858 or visit our Web at www.abnakigsc.org.
When girls take orders for and deliver Girl Scout cookies, they are taking part in the Girl Scout program. This activity teaches girls life skills such as goal-setting, entrepreneurship, teamwork and responsibility and helps girls develop self-confidence.
“Each and every year I know we’re training girls to fill all sorts of roles in the future,” said Lucy Eaton Hawkins, CEO of Abnaki Girl Scout Council. “One of these  young women may some day become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a university president, a governor or U.S. president, CEO of a Girl Scout council, a highly-skilled teacher, parent or Girl Scout troop leader.”
In Abnaki Girl Scout Council, proceeds from the cookie activity are used to provide Girl Scouting to over 4,500 girls and to provide training and support services to adult volunteer members. During the 2006 cookie activity, girls in our council sold 353,289 packages of Girl Scout cookies.
Each Girl Scout council in the United States sets its own selling price per box, taking into account the council’s current financial need. All of the revenue, after paying the baker, remains in the area where the cookies are sold and benefits Girl Scouts locally.
Girl Scout troops receive 65 to 70 cents per box sold, depending upon the incentive option the girls themselves choose.  Troops use their earnings to fund service projects, pay for supplies and insignia and to pay fees for events, camps or other activities.