A SWEET TREAT
Troops use fundraiser to ‘make world better place’
Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster once declared cookies “…like high five for stomach.”
The Girl Scout cookies on sale through March 10 are all that and then some, and the latter goes far deeper than the instant gratification of a Thin Mint or Caramel deLite. In short, says one leader, the campaign helps girls learn “how to be advocates for their community and give back.”
The iconic sale has area roots. According to histories that trace those roots, a number of troops sold homemade cookies to benefit various relief efforts after Juliette Gordon Low created Girl Scouts in 1912. Scouting’s Philadelphia Council launched the first sale of commercially-sourced cookies in 1934 during the heart of the Great Depression.
According to https://explorepahistory.com, the transition from homemade followed Philadelphia-area Girl Scout Council’s decision “to use cookie sales to raise money for its Camp Indian Run in Glenmoore, Chester County, (and)…a Girl Scout leader asked the head of Keebler-Wyl Baking Company to bake and package Girl Scout cookies.
“Keebler-Wyl baked 100,000 boxes of the first commercially produced Girl Scout cookie — a vanilla cookie in the form of the Girl Scout symbol, the trefoil — at 260 North 22nd Street for the Girl Scouts’ December cookie sale.”
Keebler-Wyl became national supplier for the trefoil cookie in 1936.
“Between Oct. 24 and Nov. 7, the Girl Scouts of America held their first official nationwide sale of Girl Scout cookies,” Explore PA History continues. “The sale became an annual tradition until shortages in sugar, flour and butter during World War 2 forced the Girl Scouts to switch from selling cookies to calendars (but) resumed in 1945…”
A Girl Scout Cookies Historical Marker at 1401 Arch St. in Philadelphia notes that the Keebler-Wyl cookies sold for 23 cents a box or six boxes for $1.35. These days, they’re $5 per box here ($6 per box for gluten-free Caramel Chocolate Chip), compared to $7 a box in New York.
Cookie pricing is set by a given area’s Scouting Council, explains Maureen Adgie, service unit manager for the 20 troops located in Eastern Pennsylvania Council’s Colonial Service Unit 650. Proceeds from direct sales or monetary donations help support Girl