Anyone who has ever had a Girl Scout in the family knows the pleasures of cookie season. Those tasty boxes of baked goods are an important part of every Girl Scout troop, and a way to teach responsibility to impressionable young girls. They raise a lot of money for activities for the troop, and most of us look forward to buying cookies every year, because they are incredibly delicious!

According to Girl Scout officials, via CNN, cookie sales traditionally top out at around 200 million boxes a year, and 100 % of the proceeds stay local with the troop and its council. So, the economic impact is pretty huge for the individual troops. It's a good way to justify purchasing that extra box of Thin Mints, right?

In years past, it is not unusual to see Girl Scouts selling boxes of cookies outside of grocery stores, at libraries and parks, or even door to door in safe neighborhoods. But the pandemic put a halt to all of that, and cookie sales pretty much went digital last year. Definitely not as much fun as seeing the smiles on those little faces, but still a good way to support the Scouts.

But Girl Scout officials tell CNN that because of the pandemic they have "15 million boxes of unsold cookies in surplus this year, with about 12 million boxes that never even left the baking warehouses." Not every council or area has unsold cookies, but that is a huge amount just sitting around without being sold. To be honest, I hate to hear this so much.

But officials are saying there could be a silver lining to all of this. Even though citizens cannot purchase individual boxes, they can "buy cookies that will be donated to first responders, food banks and "other worthy causes." And who wouldn't want to give an extra box of those delicious Samoas?

 

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