EVANSVILLE — If you know a Girl Scout, chances are you will be — or have already been — asked whether you’d like to buy a box or two of cookies this month.
But groups of Scouts won’t be stationed with cookies in hand at public places such as grocery stores and the mall, until next month when those who ordered their cookies this month will also receive their boxes.
“The girls are busy taking orders right now though Jan. 18 by going door-to-door and asking friends and family,” said Stacey Godbold, a spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of Southwest Indiana.
Photo by Molly Bartels
Rachelle Parker, center, her sister, Sarah, left, help Charles Gulledge with a Girl Scout cookie order. The cookies are $3.50 a box.
Photo by Molly Bartels
Rachelle Parker, 9, back, her sister, Sarah, 7, front left, talk to Jennifer Schneider and her dog, Memphis, about ordering Girl Scout cookies in Evansville on Sunday. Cookie sales cover more than 65 percent of the chapter’s expenses.
While the cookie sales raise funds that cover more than 65 percent of the chapter’s expenses, sales represent much more that just a fundraiser, officials said.
“The cookie program is centered around learning by doing. When a Girl Scout sells cookies, she becomes the CEO of her own cookie business,” Godbold said. “She builds leadership skills such as financial literacy, goal-setting, decision-making, money management, business ethics and people skills.”
Sisters Rachelle and Sarah Parker were two of the many Scouts out this weekend taking orders from friends and neighbors.
Rachelle, 9, is in her fourth year of Scouting and is currently in Brownie Troop No. 62 while 7-year-old Sarah is in her second year as a Daisy Scout in Troop No. 101. Combined, the sisters sold about 250 boxes last year. Decked out in their badge-filled Scouting vest and sash, the sisters took orders for six boxes of cookies from their neighbors in the Green River Estates III neighborhood just off Green River Road during the first 20 minutes that they canvassed the neighborhood. Their mother, Kimbra Parker, who said she was a Scout for two years as a child accompanied them.
This year, cookie-lovers will notice a new offering: a mango creme-vanilla cookie addition that officials hope variety that officials hope capitalize on the current popularity of both cream-filled cookies and citrus flavors. Godbold said the decision to add the cookie, as well as discontinue the sale of the Shout Outs, a Belgian-style caramelized cookie was made by the organization’s baker.
Cookies are sold by the box and cost $3.50 apiece. Anyone who wants to pre-order a box but has not been approached by one of the approximately 10,000 Scouts in the 11 counties that the Girl Scouts of Southwest Indiana counts among its membership can order direct from the organization. Orders can be placed by phone at 812-421-4970 or online at www.girlscouts-gssi.org. Orders that are being taken now will be delivered in mid-February. Once the cookies arrive, cookie sales for those people who didn’t pre-order — or those who need an extra box or more — will last into early-March when the troops will set up “cookie booths” around the area.
The Parkers made sure they had plenty of boxes and froze several varieties — including a 12-box case of Peanut Butter Patties, which are cookies covered in peanut butter and then dipped in chocolate. — so they could enjoy the cookies all year long. But, despite calling them her favorite, Sarah maintained she didn’t deserve most of the blame for the entire Peanut Butter Patties’ case being already eaten a month before the new cookies arrive.
“Dad eats them,” she said while taking a break from taking orders Sunday.
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