Don’t get me wrong, I love Girl Scout Cookies – especially Thin Mints and Samoas. Yum. In fact, I was the Cookie Mom for both of my girls’ Scout troops at one time or another.
I no longer buy cookies from my girls because I don’t care for the way Girl Scouts runs this program on a variety of levels. In our neighborhood the cookies are $4 a box. Of that $4, approximately $0.75 goes to the troop, the rest goes to the Girl Scout Organization (GSO), minus the cookie cost, which is pretty minimal. The GSO pimps out these kids for relatively little financial benefit to the troop.
Girls are no longer permitted to go door-to-door without a parent supervising them, even in middle school. What ends up happening is some poor parent takes the order form into work and suckers their co-workers into purchasing the cookies. It is even difficult to have your daughter come to your work to do this because of ‘territory issues.’
Yes, that is right, each Girl Scout section has its own territory. For instance, my friend works in Stamford, CT for a very large bank. Her daughter has come in for years to sell cookies to my friend’s coworkers — our troop made a killing on that bank’s trading floor. Not anymore. Some stoolie ratted out the fact that it was not a Stamford, CT troop selling cookies there and my friend’s daughter is no longer able to sell cookies there. However, her mom can bring in the order form and sell those cookies. Stupid. That is certainly teaching the value of responsibility to a Scout.
Have you ever looked at the back of a box of Girl Scout cookies? If you want to continue eating them, I suggest you don’t. Loaded with crap. Two Scouts are trying to change what goes into the cookies. In particular the palm oil which is used as a fat in the recipe. Their issue with the palm oil has to do with the fact that the rain forests are being cleared to make way for palm oil farms. Endangered orangutans are losing their habitat because of these palm oil farms. GSO has said that they cannot eliminate palm oil because it gives the cookie a very long shelf life (ugh) and that sustainably grown palm oil is too expensive. Don’t even get me started on how cookie sales are stupid in light of the epidemic of childhood obesity.
Some troops have responded by refusing to sell the cookies and either make cookies to sell themselves or look at other ways of raising money to support the troop. The GSO has responded to these troops by tying participation in cookie sales to access to fun Girl Scout events — not events that the GSO has paid for, but events run by volunteers in which the troop pays money for the costs of that event.
The Girl Scouts is a great organization that is worthy of financial support, at the troop, regional and national level. It is a source of safe fun for girls of all socio-economic levels. In lieu of cookies, I give money directly to the troop and the regional center in Bridgeport, CT. The GS goals are noble: teaching values such as honesty, fairness, courage, compassion, character, sisterhood, confidence, and citizenship. When you look at the cookie selling program — from manufacturing to point of sale – I am not sure how this program matches up with their goals.
(Pics via Huffington Post)
