January through April marks an extra sweet time of year: Girl Scout cookie season.
From grocery stores to local businesses, Evanston residents can expect to encounter scouts hawking their signature cookie boxes throughout the city.
Residents at Evanston’s Trulee Senior Center have been anxiously awaiting their return.
Girl Scout troop leader Cassie Stachowicz worked with her aunt Robin David, a Trulee resident, to organize an annual cookie booth at the center for her kindergarten daughter’s Troop 47771.
“They tell people we’re coming, and residents and staff all come and buy the cookies,” said Stachowicz. “They’ve been asking her all winter when we were coming back.”
Stachowicz added that she loves how cookie sales push her daughter to “get better at talking to grown-ups” at a relatively young age.
Troop parent Renee Garbe said Girl Scouts’ “open and accepting” environment that emphasizes “girl power” has similarly helped her daughter grow.
“I think her confidence has just increased so much between the troop activities and cookie sales,” she said.
Blocks away, Lincoln Square’s Troop 25947 braved 20-degree temperatures to set up shop at Northwestern’s Arch. In front of handmade signs and on top of a multi-colored gingham tablecloth, they meticulously laid out cookie boxes in an “eye-catching” rainbow pattern.
For the sixth graders, cookie selling is more than just a troop activity, it also represents a learning opportunity.
“I’m just a person who likes being in charge of things, so I like selling,” said troop member Maddy Goldstein.
Goldstein added that each year, her troop is required to set goals for cookie sales.
Last weekend, the troop even experimented with a successful new business model. They sent a team of Girl Scouts out with a mobile cookie wagon to make sales across campus, earning $72 in the process.
Cookie selling has taught the troop money management skills, Girl Scout Eva Conner noted, adding they must learn to conduct and track customers’ cash and Venmo transactions.
Ultimately, Girl Scout Lily Wartick said the biggest takeaway from her cookie-selling experience was to always pack handwarmers.
“I know that we all learn that it’s not fun to stand in the cold,” Wartick said.
While a majority of cookie sales are sent to larger councils — Girl Scouts’ regional governing bodies — troops keep a small portion of their earnings to fund activities.
Members of Washington Elementary School’s Troop 47273 said their cookie sales have funded camping trips, horseback riding, sleepovers at the Field Museum and trips to Evanston’s Ecology Center.
This cookie season, Troop 47273 is also collecting additional donations to provide cookies to patients, families and nurses at Advocate Children’s Hospital’s Park Ridge campus.
Working to “spread joy and happiness of cookies to everyone,” said the fourth and fifth graders, is their favorite part of Girl Scout cookie season.
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