How Sweet! Girl Scouts Selling Cookies in Costumes and from Sidewalk Stands

You can’t miss  ’em, and you can’t resist ’em. It’s Girl Scout cookies time. The traditional $4 boxes of baked delights are being hawked outside grocery stores (like Albertson’s on Fletcher Parkway shown here) or on sidewalks (like the lemonade-style stand on Dugan Avenue in north La Mesa shown in this gallery).

Gayle Neville, adult leader of  La Mesa Troop 6456, said, “This is supergreat experience for the girls. They learn customer service skills and making change.”
She says “sales this year are way up on Operation Thin Mints,” in which cookies are sent to the military overseas. Sales continue through March 6. 

But don’t be misled by dimpled smiles and thin-mints costumes. These tiny entrepreneurs are involved in what organizers call a $700  million annual program, which began in 1933. GSA  calls it  “the largest girl-led business in the country.” The Scouts say the program “generates immeasurable benefits for girls, their councils and communities nationwide. Girls set cookie goals to support their chosen activities for the year, to fund community service and leadership projects, to attend summer camp, to travel to destinations near and far and to provide events for girls in their community.”