Who says there’s not a holiday in between Christmas and Valentine’s Day? 

Girl Scouts have been selling cookies since about 1917 when a troop in Oklahoma baked them in their homes and sold them in schools as a service project.  The idea went national in 1922 with an authorized recipe and suggested selling price of 25 or 30 cents per dozen.  In 1933, the first boxes of Girl Scout Cookies were sold by a troop in Philadelphia, and in 1935 the first commercially baked cookies were sold in New York, and from there bakeries all across the country were licensed and the program grew into what we know it as, today.

The cookies, and the sale of them, have taken on a life of their own, beyond what I’m sure Juliette Gordon Low could have ever imagined.  In 1989, they were immortalized on film in a personally favorite movie: Troop Beverly Hills.  Other movies, such as 1958’s Tunnel of Love with Doris Day, and briefly in 1991’s version of The Addams Family have also referenced the infamous cookies and the girls who hawk them.

Sometimes those girls’ sales techniques go so far they become news themselves.  A few years ago, one enterprising young girl took advantage of recently changed laws in California and set up to clean up outside a dispensary.  Some are even becoming influencers on social media as they do their utmost to earn the rewards selling a certain number of cookies get them. 

The pandemic has forced a change in selling techniques, but having been around for more than 100 years, I’m sure the Girls and their cookies will adapt.  What is your favorite flavor?