Over the past several days, there has been a lot of discussion pertaining to the annual cookie sales conducted by the Girl Scouts of America. First and foremost, I recommend that you support there effort. A lot of prospective purchasers buy these cookies based on the amount of cookies that they will eat. However, for those of us who eat very few cookies on an annual basis, you should keep in mind that they can also be very nice, quality, inexpensive birthday gifts, Christmas gifts and anniversary gifts. You can do all of your annual gift shopping the next time one of these little darlings rings your door bell, what a great service they provide.
Prior to the purchase of your cookies, take into consideration the history of the Girl Scout Cookie. The first cookies appeared as early as 1917, when mothers would bake cookies in their personal kitchens to help finance troop activities. The earliest mention of cookie sales took place in Muskogee, Oklahoma in December 1917.
In July 1922, the American Girl magazine published by the Girl Scout National Headquarters featured an article and recipe for cookies, the author estimated the cost of ingredients for 6 to 7 dozen cookies to be 26 to 36 cents. The cookies, she suggested could be sold by troops for 25 to 30 per dozen.
Cookies were sold annually by local councils until World War II, when sugar, flour and butter shortages led the Girl Scouts to selling calendars.
The national organization licensed local bakers to produce and package the cookies, by 1948 a total of twenty nine bakers throughout the nation were licensed to bake the Girl Scout Cookies.
It is estimated that this year, the Girl Scouts will sell around 170 million boxes of cookies. All five of the core lines are among the 15 most popular commercial cookies sold in the U.S., based on sales volumes. Thin Mints, the long time standard of the Girl Scouts still makes up 25% of all Girl Scout cookie sales and the third most popular cookie in the country. Samoas are second with 19% of the gross sales and Do-Si-Dos, Tag-Alongs and Trefoils follow in that order. Cookie sales have been unparalleled money maker, $350 million dollars will go to the Girl Scouts via cookie sales this year. Unfortunately, the annual cookies sales must also deal with the realities of today's world. Wisconsin Girl Scouts had to take people to court last year for welching on cookie payments, one customer owed more than $1,400. Scouts nationwide are banned from Internet sales, even in supervised settings it is not possible to guarantee that the person purchasing the cookies harbors no harmful intent. So, I encourage each of you to purchase as many cookies as you can afford, these young ladies deserve our loyal and loving support.
By now, you must be wondering why would I concentrate so much energy on the subject of cookies. I thank you for asking! My daughter, Heidi who is very active in the Girl Scouts and organizes the cookie sales each year for her troop published some un-documented information pertaining to this years cookie sales. She stated that she was able to load 147 cases of cookies in her "pretty white Chevrolet Silverado", when questioned about this statement she recomputed that those cases equaled out to 1,764 boxes of cookies. Taking into consideration that she is an honest person, I would have to question her math. To accomplish the task of cookie distribution of on a nation wide basis, based on her calculations it would take 96,372 white Chevy Silverados to transport all these cookies. Based on this fact alone, it would be impossible to distribute all of these cookies in time for the annual sales if we all drove Chevrolets - so stay with a good American built truck, drive a Ford as they will haul more cookies. The point to this is that Girl Scout annual cookie sales commenced the same year that Henry Ford rolled out the first standard manufactured motor vehicle, so stay with the American tradition, eat a bunch of Girl Scout Cookies while you are motoring down the beautiful and scenic highways and byways of our great nation in your Ford, it is the American Way. BUY YOUR GIRL SCOUT COOKIES TODAY.