Every year, booths are set up in front of shopping centers and community events are lined with colorful boxes being sold by smiling faces of little girls. And what are in those colorful boxes? They’re filled with Girl Scout cookies.
In the early 1900s, Girl Scouts began selling cookies as a way to raise money; in 1922, The American Girl magazine published a recipe for a cookie that was made in kitchens and sold around America. Today, there are nearly a dozen types of cookies and while those cookies are not homemade, the hard work and lessons learned are still the same.
Kim Jackson and her 10-year-old daughter, Blythe, were traveling around the Kinston area Friday night with a carload of Girl Scout cookies to deliver to the homes of friends and family. Blythe, who has been a Girl Scout for two years, says the Thanks-a-Lot cookie, a shortbread cookie dipped in fudge, is her favorite, because, “I like to eat them with marshmallows like a s’more.”
Standing underneath the shelter of the Plaza Shopping Center’s Piggly Wiggly on Saturday was Missy Small, her 6-year-old daughter Abby and Shannon Chandler, Abby’s troop leader. It was cold and rainy but Chandler said, “People buy more cookies in the rain because they feel sorry for us.”
This is Abby’s first year in the Girl Scouts and she has sold about 200 boxes of cookies so far.