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Health & Fitness

Brighton Girl Scouts begin Cookie Booth sales

BRIGHTON – Girl Scouts in the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area are becoming young entrepreneurs as they set up their own retail businesses to sell Girl Scout cookies to customers interested in a tasty way to support them.

Girls in troops that are part of Girl Scouts Heart of Michigan will be staffing cookie booths stocked with customer favorites such as Thin Mints and Samoas  beginning today.  These booths will be set up near high-traffic areas and local businesses which have agreed to allow the sales because they know how important the Cookie program is to the girls.

The annual sales of the iconic cookies is the world’s largest girl-led business with nearly $800 million in sales.  The goal of the cookie program is to teach girls five essential life skills: goal setting, decision making, money management, business ethics, and people skills.  This year Girl Scouts introduced the Strive for Five initiative which enters people who buy five boxes of cookies into a drawing to win five cases of the cookies of their choice.

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Seventy-five percent of the sales from each box of cookies is used to provide programming and services for girls and adult volunteers.  The remaining 25 percent pays for the cost of the cookies.

“The simple act of buying Girl Scout cookies helps us to provide the types of programming and services that help us to fulfill our mission to build girls of courage, confidence and character who will make the world a better place,” said Jan Barker, GSHOM’s Chief Executive Officer.  “These girls are our future leaders and as the premier leadership organization for girls it is our job to make sure they have every possible opportunity available to them to succeed.”

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Barker said she thinks it’s very unfortunate that certain groups are putting their efforts into hindering the girls efforts to learn valuable leadership skills.

In a letter to girls and volunteers Barker said the mission of Girl Scouts is not a political one. She said, “Girl Scouts will not tolerate special interest groups linking their names to any political issue in order to advance an agenda, nor will it tolerate individuals and organizations that misuse its name and/or brand. That said, we aim to supply you with all information and materials necessary to deliver the truth to our supporters.”

“Instead of supporting our girls these groups and organizations are distributing inaccurate information about Girl Scouts which is taking the focus away from our mission to make them leaders in any career path they choose,” Barker said.  “The spreading of this misinformation is putting our girls into situations where they are being harassed.”

The most effective way to counteract the negative messages currently being disseminated at the local, state and national level is to support the girls and their Cookie Program, Barker said.

“This program has launched the careers of thousands of women now in leadership position,” she said.  “We want to make sure all of our girls have that same opportunity.”

To find a cookie booth location logon to www.gshom.org to access the Cookie Locator app.

To get the facts about our organization please click on this link http://www.gshom.org/about/issues.html.

 

 

 

 

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