Springtime: Where I Crush the Souls Of Girl Scouts
According to the National Action Against Obesity the girl scouts who peddle cookies each spring get 40 to 60 cents from each box sold. Roughly ten percent of each sale. Ask any mother whose living room has been taken over by boxes of cookies, any father who’s had to drag their daughter into work with a cookie order form, if that’s worth it. The Girl Scouts of America assert that 12% to 17% of each sale goes to the troop. At $4 a box that’s between 48 cents and 68 cents per box sold.
I know that looks impressive until you scroll down and see this.
I love Girl Scouts. My Mother was a Girl Scout, her Mother was the Troop Leader, but the Girl Scouts have been setting a terrible precedent. They’re asking young girls and their mothers to endlessly solicit from friends and family without adequately compensating them. If we’re raising our girls to be strong, let’s also raise them to be clever capitalists.
Okay Jessica, but what does this have to do with a sustainable lifestyle?
Glad you asked. According the Girl Scouts of America each and every cookie variety contains partially hydrogenated oils. If you are unfamiliar with the risk associated with partially hydrogenated oils please read one of these:
Further, and most infuriating is this snippet from their website:
Q: Are any preservatives used in Girl Scout Cookies?
A: No. Girl Scout Cookies do not contain preservatives. They are all made with pure vegetable shortening, are kosher, and freeze well to extend their shelf life.
I present to you a Girl Scout cookie nutritional label.
The partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil is enhanced with TBHQ for freshness.
What is TBHQ?
If TBHQ adds freshness, isn’t that by definition a preservative?
According to the World Health Organization TBHQ caused no deaths in dogs (congratulations!) and only slight discoloration of basal cells in rats. There appears to be a positive association with lymphoma in mice, but that doesn’t seem to alarm the Girl Scouts, as they tout their cookies as preservative free!
Folks, if you want cookies, bake them or buy them, I don’t care, but if the shelf life is longer than your pet goldfish, it’s not food.
If you think your local Girl Scouts are adorable (and I do) drop $1 in the jar and leave the cookies behind. They’ll make more money that way anyhow, and you don’t even have to worry about what’s gone into your body.
Jessica,
I’m sorry to tell you: you picked on the wrong group, here. See, Girl Scouting helps girls learn to be assertive and strong, which may explain all the comments.
I was a Girl Scout until the ripe old age of 14, and I always HATED selling the cookies. I could only hit houses during the daylight hours, and many people weren’t home (except the unemployed). Also, my father was a carpenter, so there was no “office” for him to bring the order form to. Finally, my troop never helped anyone with the summer camp. Though we went on an awful lot of weekend trips, probably with the cookie money.
I do agree though with Trishia. You want a really awful fundraiser? Schools: if it’s not magazines (wasteful and excessive), it’s disgusting candies, chock full of HFCS (and mercury?).
Overall, GS was an awesome experience. I fully credit it with my ability to light a fire and cook over it, pitch a tent in the dark, and scavenge for firewood. Not to mention my ability to speak my mind!
Girl Scouts is the ONLY organization where girls can be themselves and learn life and leadership skills. In every activity they do, there is history and purpose behind it and the girls set and attain goals. I think this person should be more concerned about the tobacco industry and how much money they are making and how many people die from cigarettes!!! I agree with Debbie above - this person needs to get a life!!!
I too am a Girl Scout leader and also try and feed my family healthy organic foods, support sustainable agriculture, etc etc etc. Like most troops, we use our cookie money to fund our troop activities for the year, like field trips and activity supplies and — yes — SERVICE PROJECTS. (To plant a community garden you need to buy seeds and fertilizer, for example.) I do need to ask my families pay for everything because we are able to raise enough from cookie sales.
Our Council owns several camps that need to be maintained so that girls of any economic background can have an outdoor experience. They also provide an assortment of programming for $5 or $10 per girl that might otherwise cost $20 or $30. Council also provides grants for families that can’t otherwise afford camp or activities.
Believe me, I would much prefer to sell organic fruit. Sadly, when people find out that I’m a Girl Scout, its cookies they ask for. At least if you’re buying them from a Girl Scout, you’re supporting important programming for girls. If you buy them from a grocery store, you’re supporting the grocery store.
Being in Canada, I was a Girl Guide rather than a Girl Scout, but the similarities are pretty broad… though, our cookies are better.
I’m afraid I have to agree with all the ‘dissenters’ here. Sure, only a certain portion goes to the troop, but that does not mean the girls who did the hard work are getting short-changed for all their efforts. Like others have pointed out, the money that goes to more ‘centralized’ places benefit ALL the girls.
Like, say, there are 2 troops in one region, one troop has only 10 girls and the other has 75. Extreme example, but go with it. The 10 girls work hard and earn a bit of money. The 75 girls work hard and earn TONS of money for their troop.
Therefore, the bigger troop gets the fancier camping equipment, better boats, and nicer camp food, right?
Wrong. The camp is shared between the groups, so all the girls can benefit from all the campsite improvements.
I really don’t see what the problem is with this payout arrangement. It’s a fundraiser for the girl scouts *in general*, I don’t remember ever hearing that it’s fundraising for a *particular troop*. Just like if you’re raising Halloween money for Unicef, it’s not just for your ‘local’ Unicef chapter, is it??
I will agree about the health problems with the cookies, we have the same problem here in Canada (with the trans fats) and it’s actually quite a controversy. But others have made a very good point about school fundraisers offering much worse!
Are you currently involved in Girl Scouts? It seems to me you have very strong opinions when nowhere have you stated that you are involved as a leader or a parent. I have 2 daughters in Girl Scouts and I am also the leader. I do not force a single one of my girls to sell cookies. I present it as learning about business and the girls do get a lot out of it. My Troop also takes part of the money they earn to do service projects. Add in that we sell cookies to send to locally deployed soldiers. This year at booth sales we are having the community sign a giant thank you card to send them as well.
If you do not like what is in them, then do not buy them. It is no more complicated then that. However, before you continue to post such critical opinions about the organization I would suggest you do some interviews of girls that are in it.
So far, no one has responded to your criticism of the profit margins. I am a long-time GS and leader. I used to get annoyed that our troop made so little from the cookies. Until I remembered the typical profit margin of grocery stores. I’ve been told a well-run grocery nets between 5 & 10%. (see http://www.bizstats.com/)It’s the middle man (distributor) who makes the bigger profits. So it looks like my troop is doing better than the average grocery store! And our middle man is our council, which pays for camps, staff, and programs for us. So we make money twice.
Seriously, GSUSA would love to have a greener, healthier product that could replace cookies AND contribute equally well to our financial needs. We haven’t found it yet. If you have a constructive suggestion to replace the cookie sale, we’re all ears!
Jessica, thank you for donating to the Girl Scout troop. They are learning all about entrepreneurialism, including customer relations with people whose values are different (like you). I had two Girl Scout troops, and while the cookie sale was not my favorite activity of the year, it was an incredibly valuable experience. We had parents come in and teach about business, marketing, and public relations. As a result we were able to travel, camp at least twice per year, and attend fun, educational events to learn new skills. We didn’t have to ask parents to pay every activity. Along with our (low) troop dues (collected mostly to give the girls budgeting,experience counting money and keeping financial records)we didn’t have to ask the parents for anything. In addition we could totally support the girls in our troop who couldn’t even afford troop dues. Was the cookie sale a valuable experience? ABSOLUTELY!
Jessica, not only did we sell Girl Scout cookies - we also sold magazines. I’ll bet you hate that too! It promoted literacy. I know how much my own children enjoyed receiving the magazines every month and reading them. We didn’t earn a lot of money for the troop, but the girls earned wonderful prizes! The girls wouldn’t sell the magazines for their schools because of the prizes - an ice cream sundae party, and candy! When my son was the top magazine seller for the school, he won a 5 lb. chocolate bar!!! Give the Girl Scouts credit - not only do they empower girls - they build girls of courage, confidence and character!
I just wanted to pop my head in here and say that I’ve read each and every comment, responded via email to a few, and I enjoy the respectful tone.
I’m glad that scouting is such a wonderful experience for so many, I appreciate that the Girl Scouts elevate our girls.
[...] Go check me out at Green Options today. [...]