My Portfolio Step 4

Grace Kelley
Jan 14, 2017
4 min read

Step 4 of My Portfolio is to write an essay about the skills you have learned from cookie sales and have in edited. My revised essay is below.

When people think of Girl Scouts, they think of the girls that come bundled up to their door every January. More specifically, they think of Cookie Sales. Everyone has a favorite, whether it be Samoas (aka Caramel de Lites, or Tagalongs (aka Peanut Butter Patties). My favorite is personally either Samoas or the new S'mores cookies coming out this year. People may hear in a rehearsed mini speech from the shivering girl on their doorstep that the money from the sale will help send her troop to Six Flags, another trip, or maybe that it will help them pay for supplies and badges. Sure girls get these rewards, as well as incentives if they sell to certain levels, but, girls get so much more than that. Maybe that little girl is shy and cookie sales are helping her with talking to strangers. For me, Cookie sales taught me a lot of important skills. They taught me perseverance, sharing, and planning skills.

I sometimes wonder if Cookie Sales are purposely during the coldest time of the year. Not only am I shivering as I walk door-to-door with an equally shivering father behind me, but site sales are also harder due to the weather. There are time my parents have tried to get me stop or that I wanted to stop because of the weather, but I keep going. I know that the next house may make a big order and I just keep trying. One of the first times I learned perseverance was at a site sale while I was a Brownie (for me 1st-3rd grade). It was a bitter cold and windy day. We were set up outside of the Panera Bread in the downtown of my village. The shape of the buildings caused a wind tunnel and me and the other girls were constantly chasing after run-away boxes and signs. We were rotating who was out at the booth and who was inside warming up and drinking hot chocolates. We ended up actually having to move the table to get out of the wind. However this perseverance where we didn’t give up selling got us lots of sales, some were likely people taking pity on us being out there in that weather. Just this past year I had a really bad migraine, but I still went to my troop’s site sale that day and fought my way through. The perseverance I learn from cookie sales powers me in everything I do. It allows me to overcome obstacles blocking me from my end goal.

The Girl Scout Law ends with the line, “And be a sister to every Girl Scout”. I feel nothing exemplifies sisterhood more than kindness and sharing. Sometimes I would give some of my sales number to another troop member who was closer to a prize level than I was. I felt nice knowing my friend had reached a goal because of me. I have always been someone who sells as many boxes as I could. However, as I got older, girls began to lose interest and sell less boxes. The money we earned went into a troop fund that was used to pay for things for all the girls in my troop. I knew the majority of the money in the troop fund was from me, but I was perfectly fine, and actually happy, with the whole troop using it equally. One other way Girl Scouts taught me sharing was from the kids who lived on the next block over. One that block live a pair of twins in Girl Scouts who are a year younger than me. Over the years we worked out a way to share the customers on our blocks. And if I wasn’t selling as much one year, I let them know they could take the block sales here. Sharing is an important life skill I developed through the way cookie sales work, if someone has already bought I always say “Thank you for supporting Girl Scouts. I wouldn’t be as good at sharing without cookie sales.

Planning for cookie season can start in early December. I plan out which houses I’m going to stop at, what my goal is to sell, when I’m going to sell, and much more. Later the troop plans when and where to have site sales based on past experiences, and I have to plan how to get everyone’s cookies to them. One year I made a huge plan of where I would sell each day. It didn’t work out quite as I had planned, but I learned a valuable lesson in making plans that are actually plausible. Since then I’ve done much better at planning for the cookie season. If I didn’t plan it out I wouldn’t do nearly as well on cookie sales. My planning abilities have definitely improved thanks to cookie sales.

Overall cookie sales have had a huge impact on my life. There are many skills I wouldn’t have or wouldn’t be as good at without cookie sales. Every Daisy (Kindergarten - 1st Grade) that comes by your doorstep this winter shivering while selling cookies for the first time has a long road ahead of her, but with your help she too can learn these skills and many more. This will turn her into a fine young lady eventually. Cookie sales and their effect will stick with her forever. So next time a Girl Scout stops on someone's stoop and recites their little speech, hopefully they'll add these skills to what the money will go towards when they buy that extra box of Thin Mints, because who could say no to this. I've had people say yes before, and it shaped me into the person I am today.