Coronavirus wrecks Girl Scout cookie season, so scouts get creative

With trepidation, she scanned the looming tower – 85 boxes of Samoas, 68 Tagalongs, 23 S’mores, eight Lemon-Ups and seven Do-Si-Dos. They’d overtaken the home office. Christina Schwab, leader of Central Indiana Girl Scout Troop 3723, was sitting on about 300 boxes.

“It’s a whole lot better than we first started, but it definitely does take up quite a lot of space,” Schwab said Thursday. With one week to go before cookie sales end, the Girl Scouts have seen their season hijacked by coronavirus.

In February, business was booming. Troop 3723 sold 200 to 400 boxes every weekend. They had sold 4,639 boxes, around 80% from cookie booths.

Each weekend, Schwab, who lives in Springville, Indiana, would take 25 Girl Scouts — including her daughters Sophia, 10, and Adelina, 7 — to Bloomington or Indianapolis, where sales were brisker. They targeted Kroger, Lowe’s, Rural King and the malls — the crowded, germy places that began to shut down, one by one.

As people holed up at home, the girls’ usual spot in front of the Bloomington Target emptied.

Sophia, proudly wearing her sash of badges, and Adelina, donning a purple unicorn horn headband, held out for as long as they could with their sign: “Girl Scout Cookies Sold Here!” They only sold 80 boxes the weekend of March 7. When they later tried Circle Centre Mall in Indianapolis, they sold only 20.

“You could see the storm coming,” Schwab said.

So she wasn’t surprised when she opened an email March 14 telling her Girl Scouts of Central Indiana was suspending cookie booths.

As people flock to grocery stores to pick shelves clean of essentials, toilet paper isn't the only thing missing. The Girl Scouts are gone too.

Deana Potterf, Girl Scouts of Central Indiana chief communications officer, estimates 30,000 to 50,000 boxes of cookies have been left unsold across 45 central Indiana counties. At $5 each, that amounts to $150,000 to $250,000 worth of cookies.

Girl Scouts of Central Indiana will cover the costs of the cookies and send the remaining boxes to local food pantries, healthcare workers and first responders, Potterf said. But Schwab knows that this can’t happen without some cuts.

“It’s not going to be great,” she said. “If we can’t find the money to cover these cookies, programs could be cancelled. Scholarships could be lost.”

In the creative entrepreneurial spirit that Girl Scouts promotes, Schwab and her two daughters set up a telethon-style virtual cookie booth on a Bloomington community Facebook group.

“Try the Trefoils in banana pudding,” Adelina suggested from behind the booth. Or sprinkle Thin Mints on cakes.

“Did you know Thin Mints are vegan?” Sophia added.

“Everybody loves them,” Adelina responded, as a gray cat zoomed across the screen.

The virtual booth garnered more than 2,000 views. People began ordering through Facebook messenger, and the troop sold 200 boxes.

“We definitely didn’t expect that,” Schwab said.

Girl Scout cookie seasons vary by region, but scouts across the country are looking at similar ways to boost sales.

Girl Scouts in Ohio are partnering with local businesses to boost carryout orders. The Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana is encouraging the community to fund cookie donations to healthcare workers and food pantries. Oklahoma City Girl Scouts have partnered with their state medical association to launch “Cookies for Courage,” allowing Oklahomans to buy cookies for medical professionals. The Girl Scouts of Northern California extended online sales by one week.

After selling comes delivery, so Schwab loaded up her Pathfinder. The girls no longer tag along due to safety concerns, but Schwab has delivered four cases of donated cookies to the assisted living facility Evergreen Village and 10 to Eastern Greene Packaged Lunch Program, so children receiving packaged lunches while out of school would get a box of cookies too.

Potterf expects selling cookies in a pandemic will be a learning opportunity for the Girl Scouts.

“They’ve learned about goal-setting and how to deal with setbacks and rise above them,” she said.

Schwab is already planning a virtual cookie booth for next year.

To help the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana recover cookie costs, donate to their fundraiser. To buy cookies, contact the local Girl Scout council near you.

This story was produced in partnership with the Media School at Indiana University.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Coronavirus wrecks Girl Scout cookie season, so scouts get creative