It’s Girl Scout Cookie time again here at the office and all of us are busy buying our empty calories from Girl Scout parents.
One of the cookies I usually is a chocolate/caramel/coconut cookie that, as of last year, were called “Samoas”. This year they are called “Caramel deLites”.
Why the name change?
Talking about cookies brought up another question. There is a cookie (here in the US anyway) called “Danish Wedding Cookies”. These are shortbread(?) cookies that seem to contain nuts and chocolate chips that are coated with powdered sugar. They seem to always be sold in a pink box or bag.
Are these cookies Danish in origin and what do they have to do with weddings? (Are they traditionally served at Danish weddings? That is what the name implies.)
My board got hacked and all I got was this lousy sig file…
According to the Girl Scout’s, they’re still called samoas. I guess there could be some regional marketing reasons for them being called something else. Perhaps the name “samoa” is just too ethnic sounding for SC.
Hm, they’re still called samoas here in NY, so maybe it’s as Ursa Major said - it’s just a regional thing.
Jinx, the mother of a Girl Scout selling cookies here at work says the troop’s portion of the money (don’t know how much that is) will be used to fund outdoor activities & short trips. What other troops do is probably a function of how enthusiastic their scout leaders are. In my day, we were lucky to get a trip to a local museum.
Ursa Major - This is weird. I went to the web site you referenced above and the nwggsc.org domain is the “North West Georgia Girl Scout Council”.
The reason this is weird is that I am in Atlanta! The cookie on the site identified as a Samoa is the same as those in the box on my desk which are identified as Caramel deLites.
There isn’t that much of a differance between northwest Georgia and north central Georgia.
OK, this is going to annoy me until I figure it out. Why did Samoas become Caramel deLites?
My board got hacked and all I got was this lousy sig file…
maybe they are smuggling un-taxed GSC’s from South Carolina across the border in to Georgia…sounds like a job for The Bandit… keep an eye out for a black Firebird, an 18 wheeler and a bumbling sheriff…
I feel more like I do now than I did when I got here.
As a Girl Scout leader, I can tell you where the money goes. Most of it goes to the Girl Scout council in the area the troop belongs to, and the rest of it goes to the troop who sold the cookies. The local council hands over a percentage to the national and global councils. My troop uses the money to go on field trips, purchase art/craft supplies, award badges, do community service activities, and go to camp. “Cookie Dough”, as it is called, has a triple value when applied toward Girl Scout Camps. In other words, if a girl needs $30 for a camp, she only needs $10 in Cookie Dough. Our troop usually uses quite a bit of our proceeds for camps because it keeps my girls’ parents from going broke all summer.
When they were Brownies, my co-leader and I made all the financial decisions, but now that the girls are older (Juniors), they have voting rights. I was very proud of them when they decided that they were going to donate a percentage of their sales to our local Red Cross, and the Nebraska Aids Project.
The “Caramel Delites” cookies are called that out here (NE) but my MD friends report that theirs are called “Samoas”. I don’t care what they call 'em as long as I get a box! MMM!
Prairie “the cookie monster” Rose
If you’re not part of the solution you’re just scumming up the bottom of the beaker.
We have a partial answer! I have found out that there are (at least) two bakers who bake the cookies for the Girl Scouts. abc bakers (a division of Interbake Foods) makes Caramel deLites. These are distributed by the Central Georgia council. Samoas are baked by a different baker and are distributed by the Northwest Georgia council.
Now, why two different bakers have two different names for Samoas/Caramel deLites but they both can bake “Thin Mints” I don’t know. But at least we know where the two names are coming from.
Now, does anyone know an answer for my Danish Wedding cookie question?
My board got hacked and all I got was this lousy sig file…
I think this should have been phrased “What is done with the money raised by the Girl Scouts and their parents?” Sure, there’s the street corner stand with several Scouts selling cookies, but I bet 90% of the money is raised by the parents at the office.
“Age is mind over matter; if you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” -Leroy “Satchel” Paige
If you recall, in the “news” awhile back, it was lamented that Samoan women were now greatly concerned about your average Samoan woman’s wasteline. I believe other people were concerned about this concern for “Western” figure standards, because there could well be health problems for all but quite young Samoan women trying to meet the Western standards, because ‘really slim’ just wasn’t spelled out on the drawing board, for the designed development of Samoan women beyond their early twenties.
So if you associate cookies in the US with Samoans (even males), you might get the wrong idea of the effect of such cookies, mightn’t you? And then the Girl Scouts might not make it to camp.
I’m pretty sure Samoans are somewhat on the heavier side because they are no longer in their native country eating in their native way. The fruit, vegetables, and lean meat is now junk food and standard western world stodgy stuff, and their naturalised metabolism isn’t yet accustomed to it. Not to mention the lack of exercise that they’d normally be familiar with.
Once Samoans(in Samoa) were exposed to western culture, their “ideal body type” became much skinnier. Consequently, Samoan girls had to be hospitalized for anorexia and other weight related problems, as well as having more thing to worry about.
I don’t know exactly the portions but part of the money goes to the area camps for maintainance and so forth. My Brownie earned $15 dollars toward camp for selling 100 boxes ($300). Some money goes to a fund girls that can’t afford to chip in on supplies and so forth (dues) for their troop. Some money goes to buy uniforms for the girls that can’t afford to get one. Some money goes to set up troops for girls with special needs. And of course the troop gets their share like Prairie Rose said. And of course there’s more. The bakery has to get their share too, for instance.
I just felt like adding that I’m not a leader but I help out with our troops newsletter so I go to the meetings. I was there when they were trying to figure out what dues should be. It came out really high ($24). Well, this is because when a troop starts our they have nothing except what people have donated to them. (Our troop had $50 dollars given to it by a man that wanted to help when it was Daisies and they had $12 whole dollars left and much more things to do. Daisies don’t earn patches in our council.) We had to build a first aid kit, get arts and crafts supplies, and have a fund for buying the patches that the girls earn. Now, next year because they have sold their cookies and magazines and spaghetti dinner tickets, it will be easier for the families of the girls’ families.
Amen to that, SoMoMom! Our first year we (my co-leader and I) had some terrible fights with the parents about money. We all agreed on dues for the year (a measly $10- fer pete’s sake!) but half the parents kept finding weaselly excuses why they couldn’t pay up. We then told all the parents at the next meeting that we (the leaders) would be shelling out from OUR pockets for supplies, but then would reimburse ourselves after the cookie sale. Of course the parents that paid were pissed about this, and they got to educate the other parents about paying their fair share, lest cookie money be taken from their girls.
My only problem now is that parents seem to have trouble remembering to pick up their lil darlins after Scouts. I’ve had to drive several girls home after waiting 30+ minutes for a mom or dad who forgot, or thought their spouse/SO/oldest child was going to get the girl.
Sorry to rant here, the topic just got me started. I plan neat activities (field trips all the time, at least 1 per month!) , crafts, etc, and my girls are happy, but if the parents can’t get it together I may disband the troop. I hate to hurt the girls, since they’re innocent, but something’s got to change.
Prairie “burned out volunteer” Rose
If you’re not part of the solution you’re just scumming up the bottom of the beaker.
