Jennifer3141 Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 So my DD is going through something... And she has become incredibly shy. I look at our troop goal of 170 boxes per kid and think, "Well, we're going to have enough cookies for the next 10 years in my basement..." We do not have a lot of family. And we are spread out like crazy from our neighbors so I get that we will be door to door selling together but parents of shy kids, how do you help boost your kids up enough to do this? Would selling with a friend help? (Obviously, I'll be with my kid every step of the way!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
songsparrow Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 170 boxes per kid! You've got to be kidding me! Is that typical for most troops, or are they working toward a big trip or something? ETA: In our town, a few girls get together and set up a table at a high-traffic location, like in front of a grocery store. They have fun smiling and calling out asking people to buy cookies. Maybe your daughter would feel better selling in a group like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparrow Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Our troop does cookie booths at local businesses. Each girl that works gets the boxes sold split between them. "Drive-up" cookie booths, where folks don't even have to get out of their car, have been really successful. When I was a kid, I tried to sell cookies door-to-door twice. I was so miserable that my mom let me stop. I won't force dd to do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Can you do two or three individual booth sales? DD the Elder doesn't go door to door, but usually breaks 200 boxes between her dad's work and two booth sales. Door-to-door has a high rejection rate, especially after the first couple days of pre-sales. It's dispiriting. Choose your places and times carefully (taking weather into consideration), and don't bother stocking more than a box or two of anything other than Thin Mints, Samoas and maybe some Tagalongs (if your area is like ours) for late season booth sales. I think we've sold two boxes of the cranberry/white chocolate cookies ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer3141 Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 To get the incentives, you have to sell all by yourself or partner with a friend. So we will be doing booth sales but they won't count to the girls' individual goals and the mental expletives I let fly on THAT one are many... DH's work has banned all sales. The kids all go to different schools and it was insane. I can wrap my entire house in Xmas paper and if I ever see another cashew, I'm killing someone. Of course, we make this decision a few weeks before my kid starts selling. The girls all want the special teeshirt they'll get if everyone sells 170 boxes. :glare: This is our first year and I can just imagine how much fun it would be if my kid was the one who wrecked it. And we don't actually HAVE the cookies. We're supposed to take the orders, get contact information and then drop off the cookies and collect the money when we actually GET the cookies. I also think that is the %#!$%#$#@ stupidest way to sell a box of cookies EVER but what do I know?? But apparently, I'll be driving all over creation in March delivering cookies and hoping to goddess people remember the cookie order form 2 months previous... Thank goodness we homeschool and have nothing important to do with our lives. :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparrow Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 To get the incentives, you have to sell all by yourself or partner with a friend. So we will be doing booth sales but they won't count to the girls' individual goals and the mental expletives I let fly on THAT one are many... DH's work has banned all sales. The kids all go to different schools and it was insane. I can wrap my entire house in Xmas paper and if I ever see another cashew, I'm killing someone. Of course, we make this decision a few weeks before my kid starts selling. The girls all want the special teeshirt they'll get if everyone sells 170 boxes. :glare: This is our first year and I can just imagine how much fun it would be if my kid was the one who wrecked it. And we don't actually HAVE the cookies. We're supposed to take the orders, get contact information and then drop off the cookies and collect the money when we actually GET the cookies. I also think that is the %#!$%#$#@ stupidest way to sell a box of cookies EVER but what do I know?? But apparently, I'll be driving all over creation in March delivering cookies and hoping to goddess people remember the cookie order form 2 months previous... Thank goodness we homeschool and have nothing important to do with our lives. :glare: Is the bolded coming down from your GS council? We don't have any rules about individual sales for the t-shirt. All booth sales go toward the girls' total individual sales. I think dd sold 30 boxes last year on her own and worked cookie booths. She got a tee. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 To get the incentives, you have to sell all by yourself or partner with a friend. So we will be doing booth sales but they won't count to the girls' individual goals and the mental expletives I let fly on THAT one are many... Hmmm. Our council lets the kids sign up for individual sales, and the pack leaders allot group sales to the kids attending (I don't know if this is what they are supposed to do, but so be it). So there are no individual booth sales allowed in your area? Our cookie leader person is the one who signs us up... it's all computerized and she initially has two assigned booking windows, in each of which she can book three time slots, before it opens completely up. We can even call her during a sale if we're doing well, to reserve the next slot and stay on... if it's available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer3141 Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 Is the bolded coming down from your GS council? We don't have any rules about individual sales for the t-shirt. All booth sales go toward the girls' total individual sales. I think dd sold 30 boxes last year on her own and worked cookie booths. She got a tee. I have no idea where this is coming from. Our troop girls did all clamour for the teeshirt so I *think* that is where the 170 boxes thing is coming from. I know I'm 30 years older than these kids but it's a TEESHIRT. But whatever... And we are going to have booth sales for the troop but those sales won't count towards the girls' individual goal of 170 boxes.So instead of saying, "Hey we sold 300 boxes today and we have 3 kids here so each kid gets credit for 100 boxes..." we just aren't doing that. I screwed up. We rocked the heck out of the magazine and candy sale (top seller for our troop!) because my best friend and I are magazine freaks. I may have overstated our sales ability somehow by doing so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 I have no idea where this is coming from. Our troop girls did all clamour for the teeshirt so I *think* that is where the 170 boxes thing is coming from. I know I'm 30 years older than these kids but it's a TEESHIRT. But whatever... That might be a special t-shirt for pre-sales? We ignore those incentives, well, except for the one type-A go-getter kid in the troop. ETA: My mental nickname for her is Tracy Flick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer3141 Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 We don't really have a troop goal either. We watched the cute video about selling cookies and some of the troops out there are AWESOME!! There's a group out there somewhere that wants to put and end to human trafficking. I think that is just incredible. Our troop wants to help kittens. I'm NOT writing that on the top of our order form. I'm the grumpy old lady but I ain't writing that. :) The teeshirt is the light blue "LOVE" one of the order form. Our girls don't want to AVERAGE the sales though - they want each girl to sell 170 boxes. I left the meeting not sure if these girls actually know what "average" means though. One of the 3rd graders didn't knwo the difference between a triangle and rectangle so I just left the meeting more confused. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sparrow Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 We don't really have a troop goal either. We watched the cute video about selling cookies and some of the troops out there are AWESOME!! There's a group out there somewhere that wants to put and end to human trafficking. I think that is just incredible. Our troop wants to help kittens. I'm NOT writing that on the top of our order form. I'm the grumpy old lady but I ain't writing that. :) The teeshirt is the light blue "LOVE" one of the order form. Our girls don't want to AVERAGE the sales though - they want each girl to sell 170 boxes. I left the meeting not sure if these girls actually know what "average" means though. One of the 3rd graders didn't knwo the difference between a triangle and rectangle so I just left the meeting more confused. Got it. Sounds like the girls made that decision. Sounds like they're Brownies? I'm sure they don't understand what it means for each girl to sell 200 boxes individually. We have a Junior troop (4th & 5th graders) and when they saw the iPad incentive, 3 or 4 of them actually wrote down their goal as 5,000 boxes :001_rolleyes: . Yeah, good luck with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer3141 Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 Got it. Sounds like the girls made that decision. Sounds like they're Brownies? I'm sure they don't understand what it means for each girl to sell 200 boxes individually. We have a Junior troop (4th & 5th graders) and when they saw the iPad incentive, 3 or 4 of them actually wrote down their goal as 5,000 boxes :001_rolleyes: . Yeah, good luck with that. We are a multilevel troop with brownies, juniors and the little squirts (I forget what they are called but holy cow are they cute?!?!) We top out at 1500 boxes. If you sell that, you get a laptop or a Nook Color. Several girls have that as their goal and I laughed and laughed to myself over that. How would you even get 1500 boxes in your trunk?? What kind of Mom has the time to deliver that!??! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 We top out at 1500 boxes. If you sell that, you get a laptop or a Nook Color. Several girls have that as their goal and I laughed and laughed to myself over that. How would you even get 1500 boxes in your trunk?? What kind of Mom has the time to deliver that!??! Tracy Flick's mom. Seriously. None of the rest of the girls in DD's troop sell much more than 200 boxes, either in Brownies or Juniors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unsinkable Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Many of the 1000 box girls I know can do that many b/c they have many people selling for them and sometimes have a location to sell from...I've seen them sold at sub and pizza shops, bars, restaurants, etc. The family preorders all those boxes based on previous years' sales. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starr Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Kids don't sell tons of cookies, it's their adults. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WiseOwlKnits Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 I'm a troop leader for a Brownie troop. Our troop minimum is 4 cases. That's 48 boxes. In our council, we take the cookies themselves door to door instead of pre-ordering with a form. Sounds like it should be better than pre-ordering from a form, but we get penalized BIG if we turn back in even 1 single box from our entire troop. You have to be really careful how many you cases you order. Lily ordered 10.5 cases. She wanted the incentive that came with 125 boxes. Cookie sales started on Wed and she just finished an hour ago. :) I always breathe a huge sigh of relief when she's done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GailV Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Is the bolded coming down from your GS council? We don't have any rules about individual sales for the t-shirt. All booth sales go toward the girls' total individual sales. I think dd sold 30 boxes last year on her own and worked cookie booths. She got a tee. Yeah, our Council adds booth sales onto individual sales -- it's up to the troop to figure out how to divvy up the troop sales for that purpose. One year the girls in older dd's troop decided to stick all the booth sales onto one girl's form because that girl hadn't sold as many door-to-door -- that gave her enough to get a cooler incentive than she would've otherwise. It was really sweet. Also, all booth sales have to be done by troop. No individual booth sales. They must be registered. People cheat on this, but it's a big scandal if they do. The first year we lived here and knew NO ONE both of our girls wanted to sell 120 boxes, for a total of 240 boxes door-to-door. They wanted some ^&*)*&% stuffed dog incentive. It was brutal. Dh took them door-to-door until they got them all sold. Years later older dd put the stuffed dog in the pile to go to the Goodwill. NO WAY ARE YOU GIVING THAT STUPID DOG AWAY AFTER WE ALL SUFFERED THROUGH THAT! By the way, dh could take forms to work, but refused to, saying it would be a learning experience for the kids if they had to sell all the boxes themselves. Mostly they learned that they loathe cold call selling. They also learned to make a spreadsheet on who bought what boxes, and in later years just went to the houses that bought a lot (they can now sell dozens of boxes in a couple of hours because they can target their sales). Also, we have always given people the option to order boxes for us to take to a charity. That's very popular. Our council now supports this concept, but we did it even when our council and troop didn't have it as an option. We give people receipts for their taxes, if they want. When we delivered the boxes to the charity we took photos, and let people know the grand total of boxes delivered there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Kids don't sell tons of cookies, it's their adults. Which was why I bought cookies so dd got the participation pin or badge or whatever. Then I made a cash donation to the troop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SBMama Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 DD is a Daisy and selling cookies for the first time this year. She is excited to sell, and we practice at home a lot. When we go door to door though, she runs up, rings the doorbell then gets all shy when they answer. Most people just smile and ask her if she's selling cookies. We haven't had much luck selling door to door anyway. We went out last Saturday and again yesterday evening. Most people aren't home, and that is discouraging to her. We are lucky that she sold a lot of boxes (80+) just through my work. She also sold a bunch more (60+) to family and friends. Next year we will have 2 girl scouts, so it will be even harder for them to sell very many. Our troop only asks that the girls sell 50 boxes each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GailV Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 We are a multilevel troop with brownies, juniors and the little squirts (I forget what they are called but holy cow are they cute?!?!) We top out at 1500 boxes. If you sell that, you get a laptop or a Nook Color. Several girls have that as their goal and I laughed and laughed to myself over that. How would you even get 1500 boxes in your trunk?? What kind of Mom has the time to deliver that!??! A friend had a mom in her troop that was determined that her daughter would win the iPod or whatever was the top item. So the Mom ordered 1000 boxes, or whatever absurd number it was, and set up a booth to sell them for her daughter. Wouldn't it just be easier to go buy an iPod for your kid? The mom had to front the money for the cookies to the Council since the order was so big. It was so intensely weird. Dds are old enough now to opt out of incentives. It makes life so much easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unsinkable Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Oh I just remembered something funny! One year this girl's mom sold over 100 boxes at her work...but she worked a a cookie factory! LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest inoubliable Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Um. Shamelessly highjacking this for a sec. The cookies are already being sold?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer3141 Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 Um. Shamelessly highjacking this for a sec. The cookies are already being sold?! We officially started today! How many boxes can I put you down for?!?!? :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Um. Shamelessly highjacking this for a sec. The cookies are already being sold?! How soon you moving to Portland? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest inoubliable Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 We officially started today! How many boxes can I put you down for?!?!? :) I seriously need to find a troop using ABC Bakers, not Little Brownie Bakers. ABC Bakers has the vegan cookies! How soon you moving to Portland? Not soon enough!! I am hoping for fall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer3141 Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 How soon you moving to Portland? I'll ship ANYWHERE!!! I'd ship to the freaking MOON to get this done. :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 ABC Bakers has the vegan cookies! We complain about this every year to no avail... and I think there's a market, at least on the coasts, for a gluten free cookie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staceyobu Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 A friend put something about this on facebook today and looked like she had gotten quite a few responses. Seriously, I may buy some and it is someone I haven't seen in years. The good thing about selling girl scout cookies is it is the one fundraiser people actually want to purchase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali in OR Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 We figured out after the first year that we could order cases of the varieties that sell well and were always able to sell them all (i.e. we didn't have preorders--if they hadn't sold I would have paid for them myself). We decorated a case with bright signs that said "Girl Scout Cookies $4" and dd carried it with her wherever we went (lunch at dh's work, kid activities, etc.). People would come up to us to see if we had their favorite flavor--I think we always stocked it with 3-4 boxes each of thin mints and samoas and one or two of the other decent flavors. Zero dulce de leche cookies or whatever new different variety they were trying that year. We also had a troop member who signed up for 1000 boxes to get the iPod. They were able to schedule booth time on the master schedule of grocery store booths and sell that way. They had to schedule many sessions to sell them and I think still had many cases in their garage for some time. There are easier ways to get an iPod! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 ETA: In our town, a few girls get together and set up a table at a high-traffic location, like in front of a grocery store. They have fun smiling and calling out asking people to buy cookies. Maybe your daughter would feel better selling in a group like that. I was a girl guide and that was how I sell cookies as someone who is still shy. I opt to be in charge of the inventory and the cash. Everyone in my group liked that somehow as no one wanted to man the till and take care of inventory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jpoy85 Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 DD1 is a Brownie and we dont have a set # of boxes to sell- its just w/e you want to. She has sold 36 so far. They will do the booth at Kroger next month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kewb Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 I hated those #$% cookies when my dd was a girl scout. After my first year of trying to get people to pay me the money they owed me I started demanding the money when they placed the order. No $$. No cookies. To the original poster, I think a shy girl would do better in a group at the supermarket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom0012 Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 My dd was pretty shy when she was little and I did not allow her to sell Girl Scout cookies until I knew she would be okay with knocking on doors and giving a little sales pitch. We were never obligated to sell cookies in our troop, though. If we had been, I would have sent my husband out selling. LOL! And we always collected the money when we made the sale. Once I put in that cookie order, I am personally responsible for coming up with the money, so I wasn't going to sell to a bunch of strangers and hope they would pay. I knew I would deliver on the cookies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather in Neverland Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Selling cookies is the reason I quit girls scouts when I was a kid. I am not shy but I am introverted and door to door sales are my worst nightmare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mytwomonkeys Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 170 boxes?? wow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mytwomonkeys Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 Many of the 1000 box girls I know can do that many b/c they have many people selling for them and sometimes have a location to sell from...I've seen them sold at sub and pizza shops, bars, restaurants, etc. The family preorders all those boxes based on previous years' sales. my niece is one of those girl (she is amazing btw). her dad is a high school teacher and his co-workers buy up the boxes like crazy. she also sells to grandparents, aunt & uncles, neighbors, etc. she won a really nice i-pod touch last year. i always buy a couple of boxes from her :) oh, and they sell outside of walmart too. i forgot about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer3141 Posted January 19, 2013 Author Share Posted January 19, 2013 I like the idea of having the boxes on hand to sell without dealing with taking orders and delivering later. I think it's way easier to sell that way. If I ordered from a stranger at the door I don't like the idea of giving them money up front without the product. I may never see them again! What we are supposed to do is take the order but not collect the money until delivery. So I'm hoping people feel a little safer than way but still... I just think it's a dumb way to sell cookies. How the heck are people supposed to know what/how much cookies they will be craving in MARCH?? Good night, catch me on a PMS day and you'll get an ipad off me alone. Catch me on a, "I'm going to lose all my excess weight!" and you're going to get a back eye when I slam the door on your pretty little face. :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravinlunachick Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 I seriously need to find a troop using ABC Bakers, not Little Brownie Bakers. ABC Bakers has the vegan cookies! Not soon enough!! I am hoping for fall. Would you like me to ship you some? :) The Thin Mints and Thanks-A-Lots are vegan here. We've been officially selling for a week, but it's been raining cats and dogs here, so we haven't been able to get out door-to-door until today. DD knocked it out of the park--155 boxes, and we haven't yet hit our own neighborhood! Our cookie booth sales count towards the kid's total, so she'll exceed her goal of 200 boxes by far, I'm sure. She is trying to get as much Cookie Dough as possible to help pay her way to camp this summer. Has anybody else found that people seem suspicious of the Cookies for Soldiers program? That is a hard sell, for some reason, and it surprises me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIch elle Posted January 19, 2013 Share Posted January 19, 2013 What do Girl Scouts get for selling all these cookies? Not the girls themselves but their troop/organization? What's the goal or purpose of spending all this time and energy for the girls - not the money but other skills/goals? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elfgivas Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 one mother paints her van windows "honk if you want girl scout cookies", and people flag her down to buy them. honestly. its just nuts. my kids loved cookie sales, but i am so very thankful to not be doing them anymore. i wonder what would happen if you said to the leaders that there is no way you can manage 170, and you hate to let the troop down and do they have any ideas. maybe they could count one of the boothing sales towards each child's total. i think some folks have just lost all perspective.... ann Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reeciecup Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 That is nuts that the girls don't get credit for booth sales. I might call council about that if I were in your shoes. When my troop sells cookies, we have troop booth sales that anyone can show up for, and I divide the cookies sold among the attending girls. Then parents can set up individual booths sales to do on their own with their daughter, and the girl gets all the credit for those sales. We do presales just like you, where we take orders and then get the money when we deliver the cookies, but I don't personally participate in that. I just order the cookies I'm willing to sell, and sell them in booth sales with my daughter. This year I ordered 155 boxes, because that's what was needed for a t shirt. Last year we sold 520 boxes, almost all of them at booth sales alone with my daughter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 I just stood on a busy street corner and people came up and bought them. I could be shy but effective that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reeciecup Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 What do Girl Scouts get for selling all these cookies? Not the girls themselves but their troop/organization? What's the goal or purpose of spending all this time and energy for the girls - not the money but other skills/goals? According to Girl Scouts, the girls learn goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics. I think my girls have learned how to count change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delirium Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 I have a shy girl too. She pretty much relies on booth sales. When she's with another scout, it brings her out of her shell a bit and they split the # sold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXBeth Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 Would you like me to ship you some? :) The Thin Mints and Thanks-A-Lots are vegan here. We've been officially selling for a week, but it's been raining cats and dogs here, so we haven't been able to get out door-to-door until today. DD knocked it out of the park--155 boxes, and we haven't yet hit our own neighborhood! Our cookie booth sales count towards the kid's total, so she'll exceed her goal of 200 boxes by far, I'm sure. She is trying to get as much Cookie Dough as possible to help pay her way to camp this summer. Has anybody else found that people seem suspicious of the Cookies for Soldiers program? That is a hard sell, for some reason, and it surprises me. Someone mentioned in another thread that the cookies don't actually get sent to the soldiers, so it seems people have a reason to be suspicious. Personally, if I wanted to send cookies to a soldier, I'd buy them at Walmart for less than $4/box and mail them myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravinlunachick Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 Someone mentioned in another thread that the cookies don't actually get sent to the soldiers, so it seems people have a reason to be suspicious. Personally, if I wanted to send cookies to a soldier, I'd buy them at Walmart for less than $4/box and mail them myself. Really? Can you link me to that thread? I'd like to read more about it. I certainly don't want to encourage people to buy them if they aren't getting to their intended destination! To the person who asked about the purpose of cookie sales....for our council, it's a HUGE source of funding. They money earned by the council for each box goes to fund outreach programs, maintain council properties (like the camps and scout huts--not just the offices!), and it also provides "camperships" for financially disadvantaged girls to attend sleepaway camp in the summer. The troop gets anywhere from 43-55 cents per box sold, and they can decide how to spend that money. Our troop likes to travel, so last year, we went to the Georgia Aquarium and Six Flags. This year, they voted to go to Savannah to visit the Juliette Lowe house. Some troops donate their money to worthy causes of their choosing. Others fund camp or field trips for their girls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reeciecup Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 I've had soldiers come up to our cookie booth and tell us the cookies got to them. He also went on to tell my Girl Scouts that no one there cared about getting cookies and that they shouldn't bother sending them. Then he bought a box of cookies for the soldiers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Winter Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 My kids had been part of GS for years from Daisies to Brownies to GS... and I watched the cookie sale get more ridiculous (in terms of goals, etc.) each year. We eventually dropped GS altogether, not entirely due to the cookie sale but it did factor into the decision. We are now part of 4H which is a much better fit for our family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ravinlunachick Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 I've had soldiers come up to our cookie booth and tell us the cookies got to them. He also went on to tell my Girl Scouts that no one there cared about getting cookies and that they shouldn't bother sending them. Then he bought a box of cookies for the soldiers. Wow. All righty then, sir. :gnorsi: DD sold some to our new neighbors out the street, and when she mentioned the Cookies for Soldiers option, the wife said to her husband, "Did you get any GS cookies while you were over there?' The husband said, "No, but I'm sure they were sending them." The wife replied that she bet he'd have enjoyed getting some, so she ordered 2 extra CFS boxes. I think I might ask our council for some photos of their shipment last year (surely some exist). I'll also propose that the girls decorate a special box for that specific purpose, and we can let them put in boxes of cookies that could ship. People might be more likely to participate if they can SEE the boxes they're sending, kwim? If we had photos to add, that might ease their fears a bit as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFSinIL Posted January 20, 2013 Share Posted January 20, 2013 I was a cookie mom back in the olden days - as I recall, the bulk of most kid's sales came from a parent taking the form into work. Now I even see folks taking orders for their dd on Facebook. Door-to-door sales are quaint, and not always feasible.I might add - last time we had a Scout in the house, hubby did NOT take the form into work - our sales started several weeks before those of the Council in Chicago, where he worked, and one of the single mom sectaries had a Brownie - hubby thought he,d let her girl get the sales for once. We hadn't realized not every Council started sales at the same time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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