Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. Have Millions of Girl Scout Cookies Unsold

Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. have millions of their well-known Girl Scout cookies unsold after they canceled their sales routes due to COVID restrictions and safety reasons.

Girl Scouts are set to donate or sell 15 million boxes before their expiration date runs out in a year, according to a Fox News report.

Spokesperson Kelly Parisi said that this is unfortunate as this is a girl-driven program and most of the cookies are sold personally. However, she added that it was expected.

The effect of the sales decline will be felt by local councils and troops depending on the cookie sales to fund programming, travel, camps, and other activities.

Rebecca Latham, the CEO of Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails, said that her council had 22,000 boxes left over at the end of the selling season in late spring, according to an NBC News report.

Members of the Girl Scout had tried other selling methods, such as drive-thru booths and contact-free delivery.

Latham noted that they sold 805,000 boxes of cookies last year, while their recent sales fall under 600,000.

She said that the plummet in sales means the council may not be able to fund infrastructure improvements on camps or fill some staff positions.

Girl Scout Cookies Online

With the challenges the pandemic presented to them, the council is encouraging people to buy boxes online through Hometown Heroes program.

The said program distributes cookies to health care workers, firefighters, and others. In addition, it organized one-day sales with organizations like the New Mexico United soccer team.

Hundreds of girls chose not to sell cookies in person when COVID cases were still near their peak. Delivery partnership with Grubhub and online sales also failed to meet the gap.

This led to around 15 million boxes of cookies leftover as the cookie season went to its end, according to an NPR report.

Some local leaders claimed that the slower sales should have been predicted as membership was also decreasing, threatening cookie sales even before the pandemic.

In 2019, around 1.7 million girls joined Girl Scouts, reporting a 30 percent downward trend from 2009.

Girl Scout Cookies

The Girl Scout Cookie Program has been considered to be the main factor that empowers its members.

Girl Scout alumnae who have sold them said that the program was key in the development of their skills today, according to a Girl Scouts website.

Earnings from the Girl Scout cookies were used for a variety of causes, including sending care packages to victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

The program started in 1917 in Muskogee, Oklahoma when members came up with an idea to fund projects by selling cookies and making those in their own kitchens.

It then hit off in 1922, when a special sugar cookie recipe was published in The American Girl magazine, including a cookie-selling business plan to help members maximize efforts and returns.

Girl Scout cookies then gained traction in the 1930s when girls and their families can no longer bake enough cookies for everyone.

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