People will help various troops achieve their funding goals and support future endeavors through purchasing Girl Scout Cookies.

This year, a new cookie, the Exploremore, has entered the lineup alongside classics Thin Mints, Caramel deLites and more. Inspired by rocky road ice cream, Exploremores include the tastes of chocolate, marshmallow and toasted-almond-flavored creme.

Scouts in Delta, Schoolcraft and Menominee Counties will be taking orders and selling boxes in front of local businesses in March and April. Posting up in public places has become the more common practice for cookie-selling today, as opposed to years ago when kids typically went door-to-door.

A key objective of the sales is to help each participating youngster develop and practice a handful of useful traits. Goal-setting, decision-making, money management, people skills and business ethics are the “five essential skills” a Girl Scout exercises when selling cookies.

Exploremores, the newest Girl Scout cookie, is a chocolate-marshmallow-almond-creme treat. It was inspired by rocky road ice cream. (Photo courtesy of Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes)

Approximately 860 troops in 58 counties in the Upper Peninsula and northern Wisconsin belong to the Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes (GSNWGL) council, one of 111 councils throughout the United States and its territories. Girl Scouts – a 501(c)(3) nonprofit – has grown massively since its founding in 1912.

“At a time when women in the United States couldn’t yet vote and were expected to stick to strict social norms, encouraging girls to embrace their unique strengths and create their own opportunities was game-changing. That small gathering of girls over 100 years ago ignited a movement across America where every girl could unlock her full potential, find lifelong friends, and make the world a better place,” states the organization on its website, girlscouts.org.

Now, “the Girl Scout Cookie Program is the largest girl-led entrepreneurial program in the world,” they report.

This week, an ad ran in the Daily Press duplicating a Girl Scout cookie order form. Though it instructs people to return the form and checks to the Daily Press, the preferred method would be for orders to be made directly to a Scout. People may do so by talking with their neighbors to see if they know a member personally, or they may drop by a table set up outside a store when those sales begin (schedule near bottom of this article).

Orders that have been received by the Press will be passed on to Troop 5061, a group of fifth-graders from Gladstone and Escanaba. If an abundance are sent to the Daily Press, the newspaper will attempt to distribute them evenly amongst other area troops as well, like 5252 of Escanaba, 5231 of Harris and 5420 of Manistique.

Girl Scouts, two wearing cookie costumes made to look like a Trefoil and Caramel deLite, beam and wave pom-poms while selling in their neighborhood. (Photo courtesy of Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes)

While about a little more than half the funds collected from cookie sales go back to the baker and for overheads like shipping, all the profits remain local, explained GSNWGL Chief Engagement Officer Missy Brozek.

“Sometimes that payment varies, because … there’s different ways that troops can earn more proceeds off of every box of cookies. And then some of it goes to pay for properties, camps, the programming that’s offered by the council,” Brozek said. “All of it stays local, so none of it goes to the national organization.”

Based in Appleton, GSNWGL has offices, scout centers and camps in the U.P. and Wisconsin. The nearest is Camp Pow Low in Gwinn.

One local Scout, Sofia Karaga of Troop 5061, ambitiously said that she is setting a goal to sell more boxes of cookies than she did last year. In the future, she hopes her troop can save up to go to Mackinac Island.

“Girl Scouts sell cookies to help their troop pay for things like patches, local girl scout events, and community projects,” wrote Karaga. “Our troop does a Girl Scout camping trip every year with some of the other local troops. Selling cookies has helped me learn how to handle and count money, how to talk to customers about our cookies and take their orders. My troop this year is planning a trip with lots of other Girl Scouts from Michigan and Wisconsin to Wisconsin Dells for the weekend. We were able to plan this trip by all the cookies we sold last year.”

In the local area this season, residents can expect to find Scouts set up at the Spring market in the Ruth Butler Building on March 7; Escanaba Walmart on March 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 22 and 26 and April 3 and 4; the Billerud paper mill entrance on March 19; Elmer’s County Market on March 21 and 22; UP North Lanes on March 16 and 17, Brickhouse in Rapid River on March 14; Jack’s Fresh Market in Manistique on March 7 and 14; St. Francis de Sales Church in Manistique after mass on March 8; and Jack’s Fresh Market in Menominee on March 6 through 13, 16, 19 through 31, and April 2, 3, 4 and 6.

Preorders are available, and people may also purchase online by searching for their local troop at girlscouts.org. The organization offers shipping for purchases with a four-box minimum.