Most of my scouting was in Cub Scouts and Webelos. We were never asked to sell anything. The big fundraisers were recycling drives and cake raffles.
Guess what the Girl Scouts are going to debut next year? Yep, dog biscuits!
I am reminded of a story from long ago.
'86 here; I was in Key Club during Junior and Senior years and we did that sort of candy fundraiser. I chose chemistry for the last class in my last year; the science department was at the opposite end of the hall from the Special Ed department and one of those students was always good for a Blow Pop purchase.
Update on the Girl Scout dog biscuit story: The biscuits will only be sold through the website, at least for now. I’m guessing they are test-marketing them, and making small batches on demand.
Absolutely. Each girl sells cookies according to her ability, and receives financial support according to her need. Capitalism, or Capital, or Das Kapital, or something.
That does happen, but it also happens that the Girl Scouts themselves sell cookies from stands they set up in public locations. There’s usually an adult nearby to help them handle money, but they often stay in the background and let the girls do the selling themselves. They also do internet sales, and I’m sure that in some households the girls do most of the order fulfillment.
Here’s a video of Irish YouTuber Diane Jennings interviewing a group of Girl Scouts in Chicago, buying cookies from them, and then tasting them with her dad back home:
That’s actually not what I meant by “collective”. To make it easier, lets say the troop earns $1500 from cookie sales. Their end of the year trip is a camping weekend. Ten girls are going to camp, and the cost is $200 per girl for a total of $2000. The troop contributes $1400 from the cookie sales and leaves $100 in the bank to keep the account open. That leaves $600 left to pay, so each of the 10 girls will pay $60. Doesn’t matter if one girl sold more cookies or if one girl is wealthier than hte others. The cookie money comes off the top before the costs are split.
Well, right. The workers control the profits communally. It’s a lesson in working together, not a lesson in competition. I am very pleased with that aspect of it.
It’s cool if the girls are old enough, yes. However, when the girls are Brownies in 2nd or 3rd grade, the moms do almost all the work.
Looking back at the experience, 20 years ago, it wasn’t quite a nightmare, but it wasn’t easy work either. My daughter’s best friend’s mom was the Brownie troop cookie mom. This meant that I got roped into helping pick up cookie orders from our local Girl Scout HQ, checking order forms (some of them barely legible), opening cardboard boxes, filling the orders by repacking the correct quantities of different varieties of cookies into cardboard boxes. One of our pet peeves was the variation in sizes of the cookie boxes, which made repacking them neatly a real pain. Then the orders needed to be labeled and pickups or drop-offs coordinated.
Our little girls were smart and energetic enough to bring us “3 boxes of Samoas and 2 Thin Mints” and help us assemble orders, but it wasn’t fair to them to have them do much more than that.
Luckily our troop wasn’t into doing the table sales in the malls or outside supermarkets.