Military men and women to receive Girl Scouts cookies through local efforts

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DARKE COUNTY — Greenville Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 7262 is partnering with the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio (GSWO) in Operation Cookie, involving military personnel serving overseas.

Girl Scout Cookie customers can come to the VFW on Saturday, March 11 from 4 to 7 p.m. in the front part of the building to order their cookies at a booth that will be set up featuring the cookies. The customers may also order cookies to go to men and women in the military for those who wish to do so.

This project is a first-time event for Darke County.

“We partner with Heroes in Action locally to provide cookies to the military,” said Melissa Seabold Bragg, customer care service for Girl Scouts of Western Ohio based in Dayton. “By selecting ‘Operation Cookie’ on their cookie donation order form, people can offer a taste of home to military members and their families stationed abroad. “They donate the cookies and then we work with Heroes in Action to finalize the logistics and get the cookies delivered to grateful soldiers.”

She said GSWO collectively has sent 90,000 cookies to servicemen abroad.

“We literally serve all branches….no one specifically…wherever we have bases and not necessarily overseas,” she said. “We try to send them these cookies because it’s a piece of home.”

“Get A Box, Give A Box” is the slogan for this event.

“By donating cookies, people can double their giving efforts by supporting Girl Scouts and donating to others in need at the same time,” Bragg said. “Girls learn about philanthropy and the power of giving back to their local communities.”

Bragg said 100 percent of the money raised through the Girl Scout Program [every penny after paying the baker] stays right here in Ohio to support Girl Scouting in the community.

Approximately 26 percent of the proceeds go directly to the baker, Little Brownie Bakers. The remainder is used for volunteer and girl support, troops and rewards, council-sponsored events

Bragg, formerly of Gordon in Darke County, has worked at the GSWO for five years.

A former Girl Scout herself, she brought the idea to the local VFW.

“I love working for the organization,” said Bragg, who is also a member of American Legion Auxiliary Post 707 in Englewood. “Girl Scouting is growing. We are bringing STEM out and the girls absolutely love it.”

She said even though she is in customer care, she and the others at GSWO are trying to reach a goal.

“I use my contacts to reach the goal,” said Bragg, who indicated the GSWO is serving 321 girls in the Darke County region.

Some of those girls will be there on March 11 to help sell the cookies.

According to Bragg, this is the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouts selling cookies.

“The booth sales go from now through March 31,” she said.

The first known sale of cookies by Girl Scouts occurred in 1917, when the Mistletop Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, baked cookies and sold them in its high school cafeteria as a service project. As the Girl Scout Cookie Program developed and evolved, it not only became a vehicle for teaching five essential skills — goal-setting, decision-making, money management, people skills and business ethics — it also enabled collaboration and integration as early as the 1950s among girls and troops of diverse backgrounds as they worked together toward common goals.

Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scout organization, held the first troop meeting with 18 members in Savannah, Georgia, on March 12, 1912. She went on to help Girl Scouts make and sell cookies in the 1920s. The first documented cookie sale of commercially baked Girl Scout Cookies was in Philadelphia in 1934, and the first nationally franchised cookie sale was in 1936.

Girl Scout cookies are $4 per box, except the gluten-free Toffee-tastics and new Girl Scout S’mores cookie varieties, which are $5.

The eight cookies available this year are:

• Thin Mints — crisp, mint wafers covered in chocolatey coating

• Samoas — crisp cookies coated in caramel, sprinkled with toasted coconut and striped with dark chocolatey coating

• Tagalongs — crisp cookies layered with peanut butter and covered with a rich chocolatey coating

• Trefoils — delicate shortbread cookies

• Do-si-dos — crunchy oatmeal sandwich cookies with creamy peanut butter filling

• Savannah Smiles — crisp, zesty lemon wedge cookies dusted with powdered sugar

• Toffee-tastics — gluten-free, indulgently rich, buttery cookie with sweet, crunch golden toffee bits

• [New] Girl Scout S’mores — crunchy graham sandwich cookies with creamy chocolate and marshmallowy filling.

By Linda Moody

[email protected]

Bst sellers in Girl Scout Cookies:

Thin Mints – 25 percent

Samoas/Caramel deLites – 19 percent

Tagalongs – 13 percent

Do-si-dos – 11 percent

Shortbread/Trefoils – 9 percent

Other varieties combined – 23 percent

This writer may be reached at 937-569-4315. Follow her on Facebook and join the conversation and get updates on Facebook by searching Darke County Sports or Advocate 360. For more features online go to dailyadvocate.com.

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