Girl Scouts Celebrate 100-Year Cookie Anniversary With New Varieties
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NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) - No, it's not a conspiracy to ruin your New Year's resolutions. But the Girl Scouts are back at it -- selling their famous cookies! And this year there are more varieties.
It all started 100 years ago when the Mistletoe Girl Scout Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma decided to raise money by baking cookies. Other troops took note, and the idea took off. Today Girls Scout Cookies are not only big business, but organizers say the program teaches girls essential business skills.
"Girls are still going door-to-door," explained Helen Montoya Henrichs, with Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas. "They also have the ability [to sell] our digital cookie which is an online platform where girls set up their own, individual page and then they send an email to friends and family to say they can buy cookies online."
Henrichs said while there was only one flavor option in 1927 there are now more than a dozen – including two new ones. "[The 1917] Girl Scouts baked their sugar cookies and sold them as a fundraiser," she said. "In honor of that we're having a Girls Scouts s'mores cookie this year. The first documented case of a s'mores is in the 1927 Girls Scouts handbook when they were called 'some mores'… because you want some more, but you really only need one."
One of the new Girl Scouts s'mores cookies is a graham cracker dipped in crème and covered with chocolate. The other is a sandwich cookie with a chocolate and marshmallow filling.
Pre-sale orders for Girl Scout cookies began on New Year's Day. But Henrichs says the selling expands in a few weeks. "Beginning in February girls will be outside of their local stores selling cookies there through the beginning of March."
According to the organizations webpage, the Girl Scout Cookie Program is the largest girl-led entrepreneurial program in the world and all of the net revenue raised stays with the local council and troops.
If you don't know a local Girl Scout or haven't been invited to a digital cookie webpage you can log onto the Girl Scout website or download their mobile app to find where Girl Scout cookies are being sold near you.
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