I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place and be a sister to every Girl Scout.

This is the Girl Scout law that I am teaching in the troop my daughter and I belong to. However I have found that cookie season tends to strip away the values we are teaching. Instead of the girls learning business practices and having fun, parents are doing most of the work. They have businesses sell the cookies for them. It becomes a competition, and in the end we are bringing our girls into this cut-throat, all for one, only-care-about-yourself world. When my 8-year-old is discouraged at the sight of a business selling the same cookies she has been working so hard to sell, she wants to give up.

Thankfully our troop is full of women who are positive and uphold the Girl Scout law. We teach them if someone doesn’t want to buy, you say, “Thank you for your time!” If someone has already bought from another Girl Scout, say “Thank you for supporting Girl Scouts.”

Let’s just cut the cookie drama! Let’s do what is honest and fair! If you choose to support Girl Scouts by buying cookies, please buy from a Scout not a business. Let’s show our future women leaders how to act and be a sister to each other. These girls are only young once. Let’s show them the change we want to see, even if it’s as simple as selling cookies!

 

Andrea Brua

Albert Lea