Feeding the community, one cookie at a time

Dumfounded. Astounded. Amazed. As a first-time Brownie mom, I was simply in awe at the number of boxes sold by individual members during that annual tradition -- Girl Scout Cookie time.

Last month, I arrived at the Red Willow 4-H building toward the end of cookie pick-up, so I didn't see the full magnitude. Yet, there were still piles of boxes the size of small cars waiting to be picked up.

I wish I had been there when the entire shipment arrived -- all 14,000 boxes. Of course, only 10,000 of those were for McCook. To keep costs down, several area towns scheduled their drops in McCook, so another 4,000 went to surrounding areas.

After the initial unloading, Betsy Coolidge, membership specialist for the Goldenrod Council based in McCook, and Anna Stetzel, product chairman, and a great group of volunteers then spend three hours dividing that delivery into piles for each troop. Then the troop leaders enter the picture and they divide the piles into each girl's individual pile -- box by box -- to the 70 girl scouts who sold cookies locally.

My daughter had passed into the triple-digit selling territory -- with the help of generous grandparents -- and I was thrilled. When I saw her pile of boxes, I was a little intimidated until I looked around and saw monstrous piles which put my daughter's to shame.

One thought crossed my mind: How are they going to deliver all of these?

For my answer, I went to the best source possible: McCook's top seller, Nicole Zwickle and her personal driver, Chris Zwickle, otherwise known as mom.

Nicole said 700 was her goal this year. Although she didn't top her amount from last year -- 916 -- she reached 749 after extra boxes were added.

She's fairly straight-forward about her motives. "I like selling Girl Scout Cookies," she said. She continually reaches high numbers by contacting the same customers, year after year. "People tell me to come back each year," she said, so she knows who the big buyers are. That still didn't answer my burning question: How do you deliver 700 individual boxes of cookies?

Mom has it down to a science. After helping unload the initial delivery at the 4-H building, the family (yes, it involves the entire family) she picks up Nicole's cookies and takes them to a storage unit (yes, a building just to house the cookies). Once there, the family recounts them again (yes, all Girl Scouts must count them before leaving the 4-H building).

Then the real strategy comes into play:

Divide the list into areas, northeast McCook, southeast McCook, etc. and then simply, "try to catch as many people as you can at home," Chris said. Some you miss time after time and the Zwickle's limit a house to two tries, before they call and let the customer know they are coming.

I struggled with my daughter's 100-plus boxes of cookies. If I had multiplied it by seven, I wouldn't be writing this column; I'd be sitting somewhere in a straight jacket.

Chris made me feel better when she admitted that the sheer number of cookies is a challenge (Aha, I knew it wasn't easy!), but that it was fun (my heart sank again).

Coolidge admits that delivery is the hardest part about the cookie program. Fortunately, the weather has been fairly cooperative this year, allowing the girls to get out and about to deliver those boxes.

Good or bad weather, people want extra cookies after the orders have been delivered. Coolidge said she'll take requests for additional boxes and ask around to other troops and council, but she can't promise anything.

She also thanked her volunteers and the girls in the troops "who do wonderful things for the council and community," she said.

Coolidge said the program is not designed just to sell cookies, but rather for the girls to learn safety, to learn budgeting for the troop activities, to work toward incentives.

Incentives? Did I forget to mention those? Nicole has earned one of the top incentives for a Girl Scout ... council trips. This year's trip -- every teenager's dream -- is to the Mall of America in Minnesota.

Finally, here are a few other answers, which I know people have been pondering for years:

* What is the most popular seller (in the Goldenrod Council area)?

This is no contest (probably regardless of area). It's Thin Mints, followed by Samoas and then Tagalongs. If Thin Mints were dropped, there would likely be chaos in the streets.

* Who decides what cookies the Girl Scouts sell?

The council decides which cookies to sell each year and are given a choice by the region's baker (there are three in the country). This explains why Oberlin sells different cookies than McCook; they have a different baker and different council. So, take the short drive or make a quick call if you want to try something different.

* Who's birthday is it?

It's the Girl Scouts anniversary, celebrating 92 years since Juliette Gordon Low created the organization.

So, here's to all those Girl Scouts who hit the streets, selling cookies to one and all. Here's to all the customers, who year after year snap-up the oldies but goodies as well as the experimental products. And here's to all those moms, who spend hours behind the wheel, parked outside of people's houses, praying that the customer is home -- on this fifth try.

-- Ronda Graff helped her daughter deliver her last box of cookies last Tuesday and doesn't know if she'll ever be able to look at another box of Thin Mints the same way again.