March 19 may mark the first day of spring, but for local Girl Scouts, a more important season has arrived: cookie season.

By March 22, girls in the Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho council will have received their first shipment of cookies and can begin selling them publicly.

The girls have already taken cookie orders from friends and family as a part of their pre-sales, which started Feb. 16. Sales run through April 14.

The business of cookie sales

In that two-month timeframe, the local council, composed of 3,500 Girl Scouts, hopes to sell about 1.3 million boxes of cookies. 

Sales first broke 1 million cookies in 2022, up from 800,000 previously. When 2023’s numbers remained over 1 million, “we proved it wasn’t a fluke,” said Brian Newberry, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho.

Where do the profits go? The funds stay local. 

“When you buy from that girl right there, you’re helping that girl right there,” Newberry said. 

Renee Smock, chief operating officer, agreed. “Other than the amount of money we have to pay back to the baker that produces the cookies for us, 100% of the proceeds of every box of cookies that’s purchased stays right within the local area of the girl it was purchased from,” she said.

Here’s how it breaks down: 21% of cookie profits go toward production, 70% contribute to regional camp maintenance, programming and local troops, while 9% is used for incentives, rewards that girls can earn for selling cookies.

About 1,400 girls per year sell enough cookies to pay for the council’s summer Girl Scout camp, while top sellers earn their way to high adventure-style trips. This year, girls in the council have the chance to go ziplining, take a trip to the Oregon coast and learn glassblowing.

Any girl who sells more than 1,000 cookies gets a Girl Scout green super seller sash, and the top 100 sellers in the council receive a coin printed with their number in the rankings, called a centurion coin. 

“Cookies were selling so quick…we needed one more incentive,” Newberry said. 

Girls had to sell 1,100 boxes of cookies to earn the coin in 2021. Now, to get into the top 100, girls must sell 1,500 boxes of cookies, more than three times the council’s average of 452 boxes per girl. The national average is 250 sales per girl. 

“Cookies power great experiences,” Smock said. They support everything girls can do, “from summer camp to STEM to life skills.” 

A local impact

Kendra Caton has seen how cookie sales can impact girls locally — 600 of the Girl Scouts in the council live in Benton and Franklin counties. Caton leads 28 of them in Troop 1915 in Kennewick.

This troop is made up of Daisies, Brownies and Juniors, girls from ages 5 to 11. Last year, Troop 1915’s cookie sales were up to 12,200 boxes. 

Some of the girls in Caton’s troop were able to join a robotics team alongside fourth- and fifth-grade girls from other Kennewick troops, thanks to the money the troop earned from cookie sales.  

The funding enables the team to compete in a local First Lego League tournament, and this year the team made it to the state competition in January. 

“The robotics program is just compassion and being kind to other teams and working as a team and things like that. So just watching the girls grow and have that opportunity is really cool,” Caton said.

She participated in Girl Scouts as a child, eventually earning a Gold Award, the highest honor for a Girl Scout.

Caton said being a Girl Scout allowed her to go on many exciting adventures, including a marine science camp and an international camp in Luxembourg.

Girl Scout cookie sales may have changed over the years — now, there is a digital component allowing girls to sell cookies online with parental assistance — but the experience continues to provide local girls with myriad opportunities.

Troop 1915’s goal is to sell enough cookies to spend a night camping at Mt. St. Helens. Caton helps the girls to achieve their goal as the troop leader, but the girls put in the work.

With a range of ages in the troop, “the older girls get to mentor young girls, and the young girls have these older girls to look up to… especially when it comes to cookie sales,” Caton said. “That’s really helpful because a lot of these little kindergartners are super shy.”

It’s clear the girls are excited, though. Pippa Caton, 6, is a Daisy and is looking forward to earning money for the trip to the volcano. 

They also enjoy cookies sales, from “going around and asking people their favorite cookies,” Addison Brelia’s favorite part, to “the prizes,” which is what Avery Robison likes the best. Addison is 8 and Avery is 9. Both girls are Brownies.

Hadley Caton, 10 years old and a Junior, said she enjoys selling cookies because she gets to hang out with friends, but “my other favorite part is eating the cookies,” she said.

Care to Share donations

For those interested in supporting local girls who may not want the cookies, there are options to donate. 

Through the Care to Share program, more commonly known as Troop to Troop, anyone can choose to donate a box of cookies instead. The cookies are delivered to VA hospitals and military installations, and some will be sent overseas. 

Newberry has personal experience with these donations. He was able to send a box of cookies to his son, deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Air Force. Newberry, himself an Air Force veteran, received a box of thin mints when he was deployed overseas in 2011. 

For him, “the cookie represents America, it represents my childhood, it represents the nostalgia of things good in life.”

In the first year Newberry worked with the Girl Scouts, 12,000 boxes were donated to the Troop to Troop program. A total of 38,000 were donated last year. 

“I think the Tri-Citians just can be really proud of their Girl Scouts. They can be really proud of how hard they work,” Newberry said.

Locally, cookies continue to cost $5, a price that hasn’t been raised since 2016 despite inflation among other councils in the area, most of which now charge $6 a box.

While there are no new cookie varieties this year, the relatively recent Adventurefuls — a brownie-like cookie with caramel cream — remain popular. 

Thin Mints and Samosas continue to top the cookie charts.

Public sales will take place outside of various stores in the Tri-Cities area. 

For locations and times, go to: gsewni.org/en/cookies/find-cookies1.html.