Girl Scouts Learn Business Skills by Selling Cookies-It’s Girl Scout Cookie Time!

Nov. 4, 2010 - PRLog -- HEART OF NEW JERSEY- Girl Scouts residing in the western area of the Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey Council are putting their entrepreneurial and leadership skills into practice. It’s time to enjoy one of the greatest indulgences – Girl Scout Cookies®. Thousands of area Girl Scouts, ages five through seventeen, began taking orders for Girl Scout Cookies® on October 1 and will continue through November 29. They will also be conducting cookie booth sales throughout the region at local businesses through December 19. Entrepreneurial Girl Scout Troops are making it even more convenient to fulfill your Girl Scout cookie craving this cookie season by arranging new locales for their cookie booth sales; including at Bridewater Commons Mall and New Jersey Transit Stations all along the Raritan Valley and Gladstone Lines, in addition to their traditional locales such as Dunkin Donuts, Shop Rite, and Quick Check Locations.  Be sure to check the Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey Council website at www.gshnj.org for additional booth sale listings and detailed information about specific sale times and locations. The cookies are $4.00 a box and all proceeds from the cookie sale stay in our community to provide Girl Scouting opportunities for the entire Heart of New Jersey region, which includes: Hudson, Essex, Union, Somerset, Hunterdon, southern Warren and parts of Middlesex counties.

Girl Scout Cookies® had their earliest beginnings in the kitchens and ovens of our girl members, with mothers volunteering as technical advisers. The sale of cookies as a way to finance troop activities began as early as 1917, five years after Juliette Gordon Low started Girl Scouting in the United States. The earliest mention of a cookie sale found to date was that of the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, which baked cookies and sold them in its high school cafeteria as a service project in December 1917.  There are eight varieties of cookies: Tagalongs, Do-Si-Dos, Samoas, Thin Mints, Trefoils, Lemon Chalet Cremes, Dulce de Leche and Thank U Berry Munch. All cookies are kosher and have 0 trans fats per serving.
The cookie sale program allows girls to gain important financial literacy skills and hone their personal leadership style. The girls develop business acumen by setting goals, managing resources and marketing product.
Historically, the cookie sale has been an entrepreneurial enterprise for many of the Girl Scouts.  The top individual seller within the Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey Council have in the past sold close to 2,000 boxes on an individual level.  Both individuals and troops earn rewards based on the level of cookie sales reached.
Philanthropy and community service are also integral aspects of the program as girls can ask customers, through The Gift of Caring Community Service Project, to   purchase and donate additional boxes of cookies for a charity chosen by the troop.
Selling cookies is a major fundraiser for Girl Scout councils. Nearly 80 percent of the money stays within the local council and the remaining 20 percent goes to the bakery. Funds received by the council are used for activities and services, and each troop receives the remaining funds, about 12 percent of the amount that they sell, for unique programming at the local troop level. This money goes directly into its treasury, and the girls vote to determine how it should be spent. Selling Girl Scout Cookies® is an important part of the scouting experience. The girls learn goal-setting, money management and teamwork skills by participating in this program.¬
Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey builds girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place.  Please direct inquiries about the 2010 Cookie Sale Program to Annette Smalley-McGill at 908.725.1226 ext. 126, email cookies@gshnj.org.

# # #

Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey builds girls of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place.