Girl Scouts gear up to sell their famous cookies
If you just polished off that last box of your favorite Girl Scout cookie, have no fear, the cookies will go on sale again starting Sun., Jan. 29, selling until March 12.
Several area troops, including St. James-based Troop 16065, Larchmont Village Girls Scouts (Senior Troop 495) and their younger troop counterpart, the New Larchmont Village Girl Scouts (Cadette / Junior troop 615) will be setting up shop in front of Rite Aid and U.S. Bank on Larchmont Blvd., as well as other high foot-trafficked areas, including Bristol Farms, UCLA, and various farmers’ markets. The cookies will also be sold door-to-door and at makeshift lemonade stands in the girls’ own front yards.
Same as last year, the cookies will range in price from $5 to $6 per box. Flavors include perennial favorites Thin Mints (vegan), Samoas, Do-si-do’s, Peanut Butter Patties / Tagalongs, Toffee-tastic (gluten free), Shortbread Trefoils, Savannah Smiles and one new flavor, S’mores (a crunchy graham sandwich cookie with chocolate and marshmallow filling). YUM!
The cookie sales help raise money for the national Girl Scout organization, as well as funding for the local troops. Of the money raised, the local troops get to keep 10-15 percent of their money from the cookie sales.
For the St. James-based troop, money raised from last years’ sales went a long way towards helping others.
“The girls donated their money to three organizations,” says cookie chair Michele Sanchez. “They gave $500 to St. James’ sister school in Haiti, $500 to the St. James’ soup kitchen and $500 to Farm Animal Sanctuary. Fun activities included a camp out, ice skating at L.A. Live, and seeing Disney On Ice at the Staples Center.”
Larchmont Village Girl Scout Troop 495, which consists of 15 middle-school-aged girls, used the money they earned to help fund a learning trip to San Francisco, and they plan to use some of this year’s money to go camping, horseback riding, zip-lining and to take a Channel Islands kayaking trip.
According to troop leader Amy Elvis Kiehl Miller, some of the girls are also finishing the final stages of their Silver Awards, which are “community service projects informed by the organization that the girls choose to help, which must be self-sustaining once the girls are finished.”
Some of those projects have included Birthday in a Box for Children’s Hospital, creating a program to provide helmets for children who want to learn to ride horses, and implementing permanent clothing donation programs from production companies to homeless shelters.
As the senior Larchmont Village Girl Scouts grow older, they are taking on more of the troop responsibilities themselves. The 7th and 8th graders of Troop 495 have each been assigned a meeting this year and run it themselves. Adventures that they have undertaken include a trip to the Broad Museum, a Cup Cake War competition (judged by Troop 615), a private tour of Greystone Mansion, and an ice-skating day out in Pershing Square.
The newer, younger junior Larchmont Village cadettes consist of 11 girls who are currently preparing to start their own Silver Star projects sometime within the next year.
The goals for both the older and younger Larchmont Village troops is to “focus on public service and the needs of our less fortunate community members,” says Miller. Their goal is to raise $5,000 through the cookie sales this year.
The St. James’ troop will decide later this year how to spend their own cookie funds, but they are inspired by one of the choices they made last season.
“A year ago our troop adopted a family and provided an amazing Christmas for a single mom and her two little girls,” says Sanchez.
So, if you want to help some of the youth in our community, plus get your sugar fix at the same time, look no further than to buy one of your favorite boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Heck, why not buy five?
Category: People