U-Hauls, minivans, trucks and toy haulers all became cookie haulers Saturday at an east Vancouver warehouse where regional Girl Scout Cookies are stored.
Troops from around the region came to pick up cases of cookies that they hope to sell this year. Sales start Friday with boxes selling for $5 each.
“I don’t think people really know where Girl Scout Cookies come from,” said Melissa Stanley, product sales specialist. “They’re magic.”
Turns out Girl Scout Cookies — at least the one’s sold around here — come from Little Brownie Bakers, a subsidiary of Keebler, in Kentucky. Girl Scout Cookies are also made by ABC Baker, so cookie recipes and names vary depending on where in the country people buy them.
Girl Scout Venita Belveal, 13, said people will occasionally get excited and buy two cases of cookies if they’re visiting from out of town and discover their preferred cookies are sold here. Her troop, 45759 in Portland, was filling a Eurovan full of cases of cookies.
Paige Cook, 12, said she learns social skills and money management by selling the cookies. And, when they’re all done, they construct robot suits out of the leftover cardboard cases.
When asked if she’ll join the Boy Scouts now that they’re allowing girls, she said ‘no.’
“I’m staying with Girl Scouts,” Paige said. “It’s just fun.”
She likes that each troop gets to decide how they’ll spend their time and the money they’ve earned through cookie sales. Her 18-girl troop likes to camp and travel and has a trip to Canada in the works. However, she said, it gets harder to sell cookies as they get older and less cute. Paige has been a Girl Scout for eight years; both her mother, who’s troop leader, and grandmother were Girl Scouts.
There are about 14,000 Girl Scouts in Oregon and Southwest Washington, Stanley said.
The cookie sales have been around for 101 years and the organization itself has been around 106 years. To celebrate the 100th year of cookie sales, the organization last year released Girl Scout S’mores. It rivals Tagalongs in terms of popularity, but Thin Mints and Samoas remain the top-selling cookies.
Girl Scouts have to strategically decide how many cases of each type of cookie to get based on what they think will sell.
“You have to kind of juggle it,” said Katie Zuko, leader of troop 10425 in Vancouver.
Her troop got 4,000 boxes of cookies to sell this year, a thousand more than last year. She said the cookie sales pay for activities like horse camp, day camp and after hours at the Oregon Zoo. They’ve also been able to bring in people to do presentations, such as an entomologist, a karate instructor and a theater instructor.
Cookie sales last through March.
