Friends, we live in amazing times. February 1st marked the start of a yearly event that I could never imagine when I was young.
We can order Thin Mints online. (Click here!)
Gone are the days of trying to find a Girl Scout with a cookie sheet. Reaching out to friends, distant relatives, and working all our sources to find our supplier. As a young woman fresh out of college, I scrambled every year to figure out where I was getting my supply. Because every year prior to high school graduation, I was my supplier.
I was a girl scout in the 1970’s. Those were the days when we knocked on every door (unimaginable these days), and hit up grandparents, family friends, and our parents’ co-workers.
The last is still true. I buy my cookies from the daughters of a woman last I worked with over a decade ago. But I’ve never met the girls, except through Facebook. It’s all online.
I spent 12 years, from Brownies to Seniors, passing around my cookie form, waiting months for the cookies, then meeting up at the troop leader’s house to sort them all out. This year, I ordered the cookies on February 1st, and the shipment arrived at my house by the 7th. I don’t want to tell you how many boxes my family has eaten already.
The 1970’s Girl Scouts taught me how to talk in front of a group, cook a meal and ride a horse. But today’s Girl Scouts are so much more technologically minded. There are over 100 separate badges for various technical topics from Cyber Security to Game Design to Robotics. And they start young. The Daisies (age 5-7) have a Coding Basics and a Robotics badge, among others. Frankly, I’m a little jealous.
The online cookie sales help fund all of that. Yes, it’s a little less personal this way, but it’s also much safer and quicker. The Girl Scouts have paired that with public sales, if you want to meet the scouts themselves. There are (chaperoned) groups at supermarkets, train stations, and many other public spaces. Just look for the table and the smiles.
P.S On a side note, let’s also give a warm wave to the Boy Scouts, who celebrated National Scouting Day on February 8th!
(Note: the links above are not affiliate links. I just love the Scouts)