MILWAUKEE — Sixth grader Caitlyn Prest has been a Girl Scout since she was four-years-old.
"I’ve been involved for seven years, and every year I’m extremely excited because I get to sell cookies and I get to do stuff,” Prest said.
When the coronavirus became a pandemic last year, the typical cookie booths at grocery stores were abruptly canceled.
“I was selling at a booth that day, so it was a little bit difficult to try to see a lot of people, and that was probably one of our worst sales ever since we started selling,” Prest recalled.
With so much uncertainty for this year, Prest’s mom, Carly Moriarity, a Cookie Captain and Troop Leader for the last seven years, was worried.
“Up until about two months ago, I wasn’t sure if we’d even have a cookie season,” Moriarity said.
That would have been a blow to many Girl Scouts and their troops, who use the cookie season as a major fundraiser.
“We’re going to be looking a year two, going, ‘we already have a shortfall. Where are we going to pick up the money? How do we even know we’re going to get back to normal sales,” Moriarity worried.
This year, in addition to the typical order cards, each Girl Scout will get a special link to share online for family and friends to be able to order directly from them, and pay online.
“That is a game changer for us, because now we don’t have to do money handling,” said Wendy Dahl, Director of Product Program with Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast. "So, if that customer orders from the girl scout online, then all she has to do is do a porch drop, or put it in their mailbox, or whatever. So, we can do completely contactless selling if we have to.”
The Girl Scouts are also teaming up with the delivery service app, Grubhub.
If you live in the West Allis or Kenosha area, you’ll be able to order your favorite cookies for delivery from Grubhub during the first three weekends of March.
“I think it’s going to be successful,” Dahl said. "It’s a little bit different but I think the different is good, and it’s going to make it really successful.”
You will still see cookie booths around your town in 2021, but there will be far fewer this year to keep large groups from gathering.
Despite that, Prest is aiming high.
“My goal is to sell 500 cookies, which I know is a lot considering last year and how that event turned out, but I’m definitely very hopeful it will turn out 10 times better than last year,” Prest said.
You can go to GirlScouts.org, enter your zip code, and find out when and where those cookie booths are scheduled.