Madison Girl Scouts prepare to serve the community with cookie earnings

MADISON — It’s the most wonderful time of the year—for Girl Scouts and cookie lovers, at least.

With Girl Scout cookie season in full swing, several troops have been busy planning, setting goals, placing orders and getting excited to help others. Not only are they bringing their famous cookies to hungry friends, families and neighbors, but they are also working to use their earnings to give back to their communities in a way that is meaningful to them.

“Different troops do something different with their earnings,” said Karen Jump, assistant troop leader for Madison’s Troop 708. “Last year, we did something for the Madison Library’s children’s area.”

This year, however, Jump said the girls in Troop 708 will be putting their cookie earnings toward a sensory path for Columbia Elementary School and Rainbow Elementary School. The concept gained international attention last year when a special education teacher in Oxford, Mississippi, designed and implemented a colorful activity path to help her students use their muscles to calm themselves when they became anxious.

As the girls prepare to begin their booth sales in early February, they attended a Cookie Rally Jan. 12 at Asbury’s Five Points building for all young troops in the city of Madison. The Girl Scouts donned leopard ears and danced to get excited about selling their cookies. Each troop also provided a treat inspired by a certain cookie for each young Girl Scout to try. The recipes were also judged by a few “local celebrities.”

One troop created Thin Mint cookie truffles for attendees to sample at the Jan. 12 Cookie Rally. (Record Photo/Kendyl Hollingsworth)

“The cookie program is very, very exciting for all our girls, from the youngest Girl Scouts to our oldest Girl Scouts,” said Karen Peterlin, CEO of Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama. “It’s something about the cookie time.”

According to Peterlin, Girl Scouts aims to teach girls a few important skills over the years as they participate in the cookie program, including goal setting, decision making, money management, business ethics and people skills.

“The life skills and the leaderships that our girls and young women learn as part of the cookie program are skills that they use the rest of their lives,” she added. “When you talk to women who have participated in Girl Scouts, they’ll tell you how what they learned in Girl Scouts helped them to be successful today.”

Ashley Creekmore, troop leader for Troop 10341, also noted the importance of learning these life skills. So far this year, she said she has seen her Girl Scouts do “pretty well” with sales and money management, and they are continuing to build on their people skills as they sell cookies door to door.

“They’re learning how to talk to people who they don’t know, so that’s an important skill—just to be able to speak intelligently,” she said. “They’re learning about a product and promoting their own business. That’s the whole core of the cookie program is that it’s a girl-led business, and so we’re teaching them how to plan ahead. … We’re truly trying to get them to embrace the entrepreneurship that can come with it.”

Jillian Nance, a junior in high school and Girl Scout ambassador, attested to the cookie program’s role in helping her learn these skills since she first started with the program in kindergarten.

“During booth sales, you can help deal with the money more directly, and as a younger girl this helped me learn how to give correct change really well,” she said. “Door-to-door sales give you more personal experiences and helps many girls overcome shyness and social anxiety and develop better people skills overall.”

In addition to those skills, Nance said Girl Scouts has provided her a positive environment to make friends, and deciding what to spend her cookie earnings on has helped her learn better decision making.

Nance is now working on earning her Gold Award for Girl Scouts, similar to an Eagle Scout certification for Boy Scouts. She plans to use some of her cookie earnings to fund her Gold project: “Garden of Hope.” As part of her project, Nance said she is planning and installing a meditation garden and a children’s garden at the Downtown Rescue Mission’s Owen’s House, a place which looks to help women and children in need.

“They have empty courtyards that they have been wanting to fill for a while but didn’t have someone to head the project,” Nance explained. “I took it up, and I am going to be finishing the project by next year.”

The project will require more than 80 hours of work, she added, and she must raise and acquire all funds and donations.

“My hope is to make the living environments for the long-term residents and their children a happier place,” she said. “Everything I have learned throughout my 12 years as a Girl Scout is helping me with the execution of this project.”

Like Nance, two Girl Scouts in Troop 10341 are seeing the value in their cookie program and drawing inspiration from their experiences each year. In fact, the girls in Troop 10341 came up with their own mission statement: “kids helping kids by learning new skills to better serve children in need throughout communities and cultures.”

“We talked about a lot of stuff that we like to do, and a lot of it was serving the community because that’s what we all like to do,” said Emily Creekmore. “That’s a big part of why we’re Girl Scouts.”

At their own Friday night Cookie Rally Jan. 11, Troop 10341 got together for an evening of fun activities to get them excited for selling cookies. They also voted on how they wanted to spend their cookie earnings as a troop.

Members of Troop 10341 vote on the service project and “fun trip” for which they will use their cookie earnings this year. (Record Photo/Kendyl Hollingsworth)

Last year, they built two “Little Libraries” for the city of Madison. This year, they will be gathering and donating lifesaving pet supplies for police and fire dogs.

“We always do something first for our community, and then we do something extra,” said Amanda Browning. The troop voted to participate in an escape room for their fun activity. Last year, troop leader Ashley said they took an overnight trip to the Atlanta Aquarium.

Both Emily and Amanda said the service project is most important to them, though.

“The fun trip isn’t the only reason we do the service project,” Emily said. “It’s because we love doing it, and for me personally, my favorite part about Girl Scouts is serving the community … because I like the way it makes me feel afterwards. It makes me feel good because I’ve helped some people.”

“I just like seeing everybody’s happy faces and expressions and knowing I helped somebody,” Amanda added. She said this is also one reason she loves delivering Girl Scout cookies. “It might take some work getting the money and keeping track of it, but I love seeing their faces.”

For those who cannot or choose not to buy cookies for themselves, Girl Scouts offer a thoughtful alternative: donating a box to local veterans and military troops overseas to give them a “taste of home.”

“We try to engage our friends and family overseas that are representing our country and doing all that, so it’s a nice little taste of home, and we have a lot of people who donate,” Ashley said. “… It’s a really great program. It’s been the best one.” She added that they work with a company called “Soldiers’ Angels” to get everything distributed.

Girl Scouts can also sell to customers out of their communities now, thanks to the Digital Cookie program. Ashley said the accompanying app also allows Girl Scouts to take credit cards when selling in person.

“It’s a really nice other platform, especially now that we’re getting more into the Digital Age,” she said. “We’re doing so much on iPads.”

Not everything has gone digital, though. Troop 10341 made special clipboards at their rally to hold all their cookie papers, and they also made cookie trackers they can pin to their vests.

Members of Troop 10341 create special clipboards to use when they are selling cookies. (Record Photo/Kendyl Hollingsworth)

The rally also served as a time to work on their marketing scheme, according to Ashley, while doing other fun things like making Girl Scouts’ signature Trefoils using the original recipe from 1917.

Emily Creekmore and a few of her fellow Girl Scouts in Troop 10341 prepare Trefoils using the original 1917 recipe at their Cookie Rally Jan. 11. (Record Photo/Kendyl Hollingsworth)

A few of the Girl Scouts’ fathers even dressed up as Girl Scouts themselves to perform a funny skit to teach the girls about etiquette and safety while selling cookies.

“Really, one of the tried-and-truest methods of selling Girl Scout cookies is when girls get in their neighborhoods, knock on doors and go door to door,” Peterlin said. “That’s always been one of the most effective ways where girls can sell their product and meet their neighbors.”

Peterlin said these rallies, along with training and supplying troop leaders with the right material, help keep Girl Scouts excited for the cookie program year after year. Though actively selling can sometimes be difficult, she cherishes her own experiences selling Girl Scout cookies in her youth.

She said having fun and persevering is key to a positive cookie experience.

“My best piece of advice is for the girls to have fun, to go out, be excited, to smile,” Peterlin added.

After two successful cookie rallies and booth sales just around the corner, Peterlin remains optimistic and said she is looking forward to seeing how Girl Scouts do in their communities.

“We have a strong, strong Girl Scout presence in the Madison area,” Peterlin said. “Our girls and young women at Madison truly are the future, and I hope to see some of our girls in Madison be the future leaders of Madison and Huntsville, whether it’s serving on the city council, or mayor, or maybe even serving in the state legislature or making impacts in our community. But we have a strong, strong presence there. Our girls are really making a difference in their community.”

Girl Scouts will be selling cookies door to door Feb. 1-3. Booth sales are set to begin Feb. 8. For more about Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama, or to find out where to buy Girl Scout cookies, visit girlscoutsnca.org.