Suffolk News-Herald

It’s Girl Scout cookie time again. Girl Scouts throughout the area began selling the treats door-to-door on Jan. 10 and will do so through Feb. 19.

The Girl Scout Booth sale will follow beginning Feb. 27 at all Farm Fresh stores and other community locations. The cost is still just $3 per box with eight varieties to choose from. Two new varieties have been added this year – Lemon Coolers, a cookie with lemon chips and powdered sugar, and Double Dutch, a cookie with deluxe chocolate chips. Others are Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils, Do-Si-Dos, Tagalongs, and All Abouts.

In 1920 when the sale started, the cookies were baked by the girls themselves. Julliette Gordon Low initiated the sale as a way for Girl Scouts to be self-reliant and to fund their own activities. As membership in Girl Scouting grew, so did the cookie sale.

In 1934, the first documented council-wide sale of commercially baked cookies took place in Philadelphia, Pa., and the first national cookie sale was held in 1936.

Cookie money is used thus:

— Twenty percent goes to troops as troop discretionary money; some use it for short trips and others have traveled on extended trips; some troops use the money for community service projects.

— Twenty-nine percent covers the cost of the sale, which includes cookies and training materials.

— Three percent is used for individual girl recognition based on numbers of boxes sold.

— Forty-eight percent remains in the council to provide training and support to volunteers; communications material for parents and volunteers; maintenance of cap facilities, subsidies to camp, council events and programs; opportunity fund and financial assistance for girls who otherwise would not be able to participate.

The Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast is one of over 300 separate Girl Scout Councils nationwide. Each council operates its own cookie sale. There are three major bakers serving Girl Scout councils; Little Brownie Baker, which serves GSCCC, has the largest market.

Girl Scouts Council of Colonial Coast is located at 912 Cedar Rd., Chesapeake. For more information contact Marcella Germanotta, communications director, at 547-4405, ext. 258, or go on Web site at www.gsccc.com.