With Girl Scout cookie season coming up, some may be curious about other things that Girl Scouts do.

How much do you really know about Girl Scouts? Unless you’ve been one, I can assure you that you don’t know as much as you think. 

I’ve been a Girl Scout since kindergarten, I lost my second tooth in a girl scout meeting, I learned how to do the heimlich in Girl Scouts and used it when a girl in my class was choking on a chip. 

There is so much that people assume about Girl Scouts that is simply not true and frankly ridiculous. 

FALL PRODUCTS

In the fall, Girl Scouts sell cookies, magazines, tumblers, candles, and even dog treats.

The only way to find these mediocre treats is if you have a direct connection to a girl scout. 

“But why?” you may ask, well the map to this hidden girl scout treasure is an online website link for each individual girl scout. 

And the only way to find these links is if you are on the email list or are directly receiving it from someone. 

My personal favorites are the chocolate and peanut butter elephants/monkeys/penguins (They keep changing the animal but it’s the same candy) 

They are basically a Reese’s cup but with peanut butter that is less powdery. 

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

In the media, Girl Scouts are much too often misrepresented as just little girls who annoy anyone they see about cookies, but Girl Scouts last longer than just elementary school. 

Usually you see Daisies (Grade K-1), Brownies (2-3), and maybe Juniors (4-5) on TV but there’s also Cadettes (6-8), Seniors (9-10), and Ambassadors (11-12). 

Most people know that the highest achievement in Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America) is Eagle Scouts, but there is a Girl Scout equivalent that isn’t as widely known—the Gold Award. 

Most Girl Scouts that have stuck with it as long as I have dream of getting this award. I’ve heard that most girls who have this on their college resumes get accepted into their top school. 

Doing Girl Scouts also means you get a lot of community service hours. Troops often host events to help others.

For example, my troop hosted an event called “Project Pot Pies” to make and distribute pot pies for unhoused people.

 I worked on that for three days in a row for three hours at a time. That’s almost all of my hours for this year done.

There’s so many other kinds of events like this one that are not only helpful for others but also very fun. 

COOKIES

The thing about cookies is that we only sell them from mid-January to early March but it seems that on TV you can just sell them whenever and wherever you want. 

You may also be wondering why some troops have Caramel deLights and others have Samoas. Or why some troops don’t have Toast-Yays and others do.

This cookie craziness is the result of Girl Scouts of the USA using two different companies to provide cookies to girls everywhere. 

The two companies involved are Little Brownie Bakers, and ABC Bakers. Los Angeles is Little Brownie Baker turf but most places in California are under ABC Bakers.

Something you should always remember when you encounter a girl scout in the wild is that the girls don’t dictate the prices. 

I can’t count the number of times that people have asked me why the cookies are so expensive as if I was the person who decided to make them $6-7 per box. 

MONEY

A harsh truth is that the troop only receives 1 dollar per box sold.

Thankfully this ends up as a couple thousand dollars as long as you have an only child whose parents have connections in your troop.

So what do we do with all that money? Well it depends from troop to troop but it’s mostly used to fund camping trips. 

When some troops get older they decide to save up all that money to go on an international trip. When they make that decision, it’s really time to hustle.

This means hosting events, pushing cookies on everyone you know, anything to try and get to where you’re going. 

Personally, my troop is starting to save up for a trip to Italy, so if you see a girl with a clear backpack on her front (me), go ahead and buy some cookies.

Girl Scouts means so much to me and I want the whole world to appreciate it for its greatness.