Raising Grateful Girl Scouts Through Cookie Season

Raising Grateful Girl Scouts matters. Cookie season is CRAZY busy and filled with a ton of emotions for not only Girl Scout leaders and cookie parents, but for the girls. Being grateful and appreciating the good things can be difficult with the challenges faced during this season. Not every person approached to buy cookies is kind. Some adults behave flat out despicable. Finding ways to reach out to those who are supportive in ways that build the girls’ self esteem makes a big difference in our troop. These things that we do create teamwork, empowerment and mostly kindness.

Five Ways to Raise Grateful Girl Scouts

Here are FIVE great ways you can encourage gratitude during cookie season with your girls.

ONE

Create troop thank you cards that you can give with your cookies to people who do buy. We made these with a bookmark die from Ellison Education and our troop custom stamp from Expressionery.

TWO

Create crafty tags to go on boxes of cookies and GIVE a box away to the store managers where you set up booths. It will cost your troop a little money but in the end, it is so worth every penny. These managers are generous to share their door space with us and we want them to know that they are appreciated. The felt heart was cut out with my heart die that I designed for Ellison Education.

THREE

Acknowledge your cookie parents with a gift of appreciation. We made these darling frames for the dads who helped us build our cookie booth and earn our woodworking badge. Volunteers should never be taken for granted. Even when we as leaders feel frustrated, we have the opportunity to reach out and BE the difference.

You can get fun patches for cookie parents too. This one is awesome because it then goes on the Girl Scout’s vest or sash.

FOUR

Set goals and measure successes. Cookie season is all about setting personal and troop goals. CELEBRATE the successes, small and big, along the way. We have a girl who met her goal early in the season and set a new goal for herself. We got her a special fun patch to let her know how thankful we were. Her sales contribute to our troop goal! Together, we will make that happen EVEN if every girl doesn’t reach a personal sales goal. We are a team, a troop, a family.

We also got fun patches for Bling Your Booth for all of the girls because they built and decorate our AMAZING booth.

This fun patch goes to the girl who “manages” each booth setup and breakdown. She counts inventory and money but more importantly serves as the cheerleader for the booth event. Her job is to keep a positive spirit that spreads to the other girls and helpers.

FIVE

Have your girls write thank you notes to friends and family who bought enough cookies that it is memorable. For some, that might be one single box. For others, it might be cases. My dad sent a donation this year to buy 4 boxes of cookies for our hometown heroes. This make me so incredibly happy. I am totally sending this to him as an example to my troop.

We are lucky to be in Colorado with such a fabulous Girl Scout council. It is so important that we as leaders and parents raise grateful girls. They are our future leaders and if we want them to focus on making the world a better place, it starts with us!

Cookie Booth Ideas

If you are looking for ideas for cookie booths, this post is super creative and helpful.

Cheers to Girl Scouting,

Laura

Raising Grateful Girl Scouts Through Cookie Season