Girl Scout Cookie sales have begun in Alaska. New this year are the cookie boxes, redesigned for the first time since 1999 to highlight the leadership and life skills girls learn by selling cookies. Multiple Cookie Apps and locators for all your electronic devices are also available again this year, making it easier to find and buy cookies.
The $790 million Girl Scout cookie program is the largest girl-led business in the country. In Alaska, more than 3,000 girls sell cookies and learn important lessons about setting goals, making decisions, managing money, people skills, and business ethics. They’ll also earn money for things like camp, travel, community service projects, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs, like Girl Scouts of Alaska’s signature Women of Science and Technology Day.
For more information about the 5 skills girls learn by selling cookies, visit www.girlscoutcookies.org. From this website, you can also type in your zip code to find out where cookies are being sold in your area. You’ll get a list of all the times and locations where girls will be selling cookies, including at many Carrs and Fred Meyer locations, through the end of March.
Free Cookie Locator Apps for iPhone and Android are also available again this year, making it easy for people to find cookies in their neighborhood, either by GPS, zip code or city. The iPhone® App also works on iPad and iPod Touch, and all the Apps allow you to discover your Cookie Personality and share it on Facebook, Twitter or email. The free Cookie Locator App can be downloaded in the iTunes Store or Android Marketplace or by calling **GSCOOKIES from your mobile phone. Even without an iPhone or Android, Cookie Locator works with Web-enabled smart phones, and from any computer. For more information, visit the Little Brownie website.
This year, Girl Scouts of Alaska has set an impressive goal to sell more than 550,000 boxes of cookies at $4 per box. Girls pre-sold more than 200,000 boxes, and they’ll begin selling another 350,000 boxes in public places like grocery stores and malls beginning Saturday, March 2. Public sales, at many Carr’s and Fred Meyer grocery store locations, and Credit Union 1 banks to name a few, will continue through March 30th. Of every box sold $2.99 stays right here in Alaska and is used to build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.
Alaskans who want to support Girl Scouts, but who don’t want to eat cookies can donate their purchase to the “Gift of Caring” Program. Those cookies will be donated to local charities such as Bean’s Café or Kids Kitchen, or will be sent via Operation Morale Boost to military troops overseas. Each year, more than 4,000 boxes of cookies are donated to community groups across the country through this program. Donated cookies can be tax deductible; check with your accountant or tax attorney.
Cookies available this year include all of Alaskan’s favorite flavors — Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils (shortbread), Tagalongs (peanut butter patties), Do-Si-Dos (peanut butter sandwich), Savannah Smiles, Dulce de Leche and Thank U Berry Munch (cranberry oatmeal). The two most popular cookies in Alaska are Thin Mints and Samoas. Savannah Smiles, a lemon cookie named after the first Girl Scout meeting in Savannah, Georgia, were introduced as a new cookie last year for Girl Scouts’ 100th Anniversary in 2012.
Girl Scouts of Alaska serves 6,000 girls from Bethel to Ketchikan. Everything Girl Scouts do is based on three keys to leadership: Discover, Connect and Take Action. Girl Scouts is committed to developing girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. Learn more at www.girlscoutsalaska.org.
Girl Scouting gives every girl the confidence, tools, and experience to discover who she can be and what she can do. Through activities related to science and technology, financial literacy, healthy living, adventure, and citizenship, Girl Scouts of Alaska provides Girl Scouts’ proven leadership development experience to Alaska’s diverse population of girls.
