They are here! Tens of thousands of Girl Scout cookies arrived in big rigs in Charleston Friday morning in time for delivery day.
Moms and dads waited patiently in line as their vehicles were filled to the roof with boxes of Samoas, Trefoils and Tagalongs underneath the I-64 bridge near the Capitol Market.
This year the Girl Scouts in troops in Kanawha County alone sold more than 156,000 boxes of cookies. That adds up to nearly a dozen tractor trailer loads of sweet treats.
Sandi Greenhowe, with the Black Diamond Girl Scout Council, headed up Friday’s distribution in Charleston. She says they’ve got the cookie sorting process down to a science. Each parent or troop leader is assigned a time to show up at cookie ground zero.
“We have them set up in [trucks] of Savannah Smiles, Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos. It’s like a drive-thru cookie sale,” she said.
The vehicles move from one truck to the next until their orders have been filled.
Organizers say because everything is so organized ahead of time, things run smoothly on the day of cookie delivery.
“It’s easy,” according to Greenhowe. “We have wonderful staff and great volunteers that make the sale what it is!”
The only problem they might run into — a car or truck that’s not big enough to hold all the boxes of cookies. But thanks to some experienced packers, they’re almost always able to fit them in with space for a cookie or two to spare.
The Girl Scout cookie sale is the group’s largest fundraiser of the year. It’s also their biggest project as well, one aimed at teaching the girls about real life.
“It teaches girls valuable skills like money management and career management,”Greenhowe said. “It gets them out talking to people and it also has them setting goals.”
While the girls get a lot of help from adults, especially on cookie delivery day, troop leaders stress it’s the girls who are in charge of their sales and they take a lot of pride in what they do.
“We have several girls who have sold over 1,000 boxes! Several girls have even sold over 2,000 boxes!”
Other areas across the council will get their deliveries later this weekend. So if you ordered cookies, expect them to start arriving at your door over the next few days.