Three Galesburg Girl Scouts are quite the entrepreneurs, netting the top prize for selling cookies: a trip to the “most magical place on Earth.”
Second-graders Haylee Larimer and Julian Henry and fourth-grader Callie Ann Caulkins are heading to Disney World for selling 2,500 packages of cookies.
The trio was able to nab those sales despite the unprecedented COVID-19 outbreak at the end of the 2020 sale season. While in-person activities like Cooke Booths were suspended early because of COVID-19, the community still rallied around local Girl Scouts to help with leftover cookie inventory.
From ordering cookies from girls through Digital Cookie to making donations to deliver cookies to first responders, every purchase ensured that Girl Scouts will have the funds to continue with their programs and activities.
“Our girls have really stepped up as leaders throughout this crisis,” says Diane Nelson, CEO of Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. “Girl Scouts overcame barriers to still achieve their cookie goals and found ways to support their community through the entrepreneurship program. From taking cookie orders for nursing homes to donating excess inventory to hospitals, I know that this was a great lesson for Girl Scouts, and as our future leaders in business, I think our world is in great hands with this next generation.”
The Girl Scout Cookie Program creates an opportunity for the girls to see themselves as entrepreneurs for the first time — where they follow a budget, practice customer service, and make creative marketing plans; and most importantly, setting and achieving goals.
Every purchase of the Girl Scout Cookies creates experiences like summer camp and STEM programs for girls in the local community.
