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2014 cookie sales down for Girl Scouts

ELKINS – Sales in Randolph County are down significantly for a traditionally hot commodity this time of year – Girl Scout cookies.

Down 25 percent from this time last year, local troops are losing $569 which goes toward travel, programs, community service projects and more.

According to Beth Casey, chief executive director of the Girl Scouts of Black Diamond-the regional council for much of West Virginia – said pre-sales of cookies have totaled 8,186 cases this year; well below the more than 13,000 cases totaled last year. There are 12 boxes of cookies to a case, and the loss equates to roughly $30,000 in revenue for the council’s troops.

“We think it’s to do with the amount of snow we received and the water crisis, because our kids were in school for (only a few) days in January,” she said. “January is when girls take orders from people they know, so that is when girls are taking their order cards to school and asking their teachers, taking them to church, to basketball games and to whatever their after-school activities are, and so much of that didn’t happen in

January.”

Booth sales of the cookies will begin soon, and scouts will hit the streets to sell cookies in-hand to the general public. Casey said the cookies sales aren’t primarily about earning money for the troops, but are meant to teach responsibility and foster skills that will be useful for the girls later in life.

“The big thing about this program is that it is so much more than just the cookies,” she said. “The girls are really learning important life skills by participating in the program; the entrepreneurial part of the program is the most important aspect of it for the girls.

“They’re learning business skills, they practice financial responsibility, money management, sales and marketing, public speaking, goal setting and, most importantly, business ethics. Part of our Girl Scout Law is to be responsible for what you say and do, and when you learn about that and put it into practice from that business standpoint it really hits home.”

Be sure to stop by a booth sale to support your girls (you can find one here: cookielocator.littlebrownie.com/). If you don’t want the cookies for yourself, you can donate an order to local food pantries. For more information, contact Erin May at 304-983-2429 ext. 1202 or erin.may@bdgsc.org to place an order and get it paired with a troop.

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