The advantage of the sign in the yard or on the car, is that we constantly run into folks who don’t know where to find cookies and are desperately looking for them. I doubt many girls use that as their only way to make sales, but rather as a way to boost their other sales. We no longer do door-to-door because we find it next to impossible to connect up with people to deliver cookies, and every year we find ourselves stuck with cookies that we are on the hook to pay for. We reach many more people by doing booth sales, and typically put in 20 hours a weekend because my daughter and her best friend are top sellers.

While I agree that many fundraisers do exploit children, I believe that the GS spends considerable effort to teach girls about setting personal and troop goals, how to talk to people, and even how to create a business plan. I have seen my quiet, introverted daughter go from too shy to sell to approaching the general manager of a car dealership with a proposal and a business card in hand. This year, at age 12, she sold over 1800 packages and helped raise about $850 in donations for a trip to Yellowstone. That is not exploitation — that is skill-building!

My daughter and I just finished up our cookie sales. The drive has another week to go but she’s only a kindergarten Daisy so I didn’t want to push her too much this year. I’m really proud of her…she sold 232 boxes total, mostly just going door to door in our apartment/condo community. People still love seeing girl scouts coming to their door. By the way there is no rule that you can only sell in your own *immediate* neighborhood. The council just requests that with the exception of immediate family you only sell within your region (like here it’s Eastern Missouri), but beyond that *anyone* within that territory is fair game. So if a particular parent thinks a neighborhood is unsafe, just go sell in a different one! Or do what this other mom did and set up your own booth…selling at the regular price, of course.