Girl Scout cookie season has officially kicked off in metro Atlanta.
In early February, local troops received delivery of more than two million cookies to fulfill individual orders made in January and for booth sales that will run through the end of March. You’re likely waiting on the delivery of your own order unless you impulsively purchase a few boxes of cookies at a booth.
Cookie distribution began on Feb. 7. Scouts from top-selling troops from Roswell, Marietta, and Sandy Springs arrived at All My Sons Moving & Storage at Northmeadow Business Park, just one of seven distribution centers in the Greater Atlanta Girl Scout Council, spanning 34 Georgia counties and one in Tennessee.
Pallets of cookies sat in the parking lot primed for loading, hurriedly transferred into U-Haul trailers hitched to the cars and SUVs of scout parents. Towers of cookie flats inched upwards inside the warehouse, with one corner stacked with 130,000 boxes of Thin Mints.
Portia Landon of Cherokee County was the first scout to arrive. At 14, she’s a Cadette and has been a Girl Scout for a decade. Landon said selling Girl Scout cookies is her thing, and she aims to sell 6,000 boxes this year.
Georgians have eight different Little Brownie Bakers cookies to choose from: Adventurefuls, Do-Si-Dos, Lemon-Ups, Samoas, S’mores, Tagalongs, Toffee-Tastic, and Thin Mints. The council’s top three cookies are Thin Mints, Samoas, and Tagalongs. But this spring, Girl Scout S’Mores make a final run, and the organization expects the cookies will go out with a bang.
Girl Scout S’Mores were introduced in 2017 to celebrate 100 years of selling cookies. The tradition of selling cookies started in 1917 when the Mistletoe Troop based in Muskogee, Oklahoma, sold homemade cookies in their school cafeteria as part of a service project. The S’Mores feature chocolate and marshmallow creme sandwiched between two Graham cracker cookies.
Alantria Dixon, Senior Director of Mission Revenue for Girl Scouts Greater Atlanta, said the organization anticipates selling a quarter million boxes of S’mores. Little Brownie Bakers will announce the replacement cookie later this fall. “I really do think people will get buzzed by the last chance thing,” Landon said of selling the last S’mores cookies for the Girl Scouts.
• More education and student-related coverage
• More dining and restaurant coverage
Landon and her troop usually sell more cookies during booth sales, but she still sees the merit of January cookie sheet orders.
“It’s really great to go door to door because I can talk to people and have those connections and I have my loyal customers,” she said.
As the world’s largest girl-led entrepreneurial program, Girl Scout cookie sales teach scouts skills including goal-setting, customer service, digital marketing, business ethics, and people management.
“Being able to do those things is the most beneficial part of the program,” Dixon said.
The cookies are currently priced at $6 per box. Last year, local Girl Scouts earned more than $3 million from sales, which help fund adventures and activities such as camping, badge work, and community service.
Landon’s troop, for example, used last year’s profits to fund their Silver Award project, which focused on self-love and teen empowerment, and won one of the area’s three Young Women of Distinction Awards in 2023. The girls even put together a Self-Love badge, currently under review for recognization by the Girl Scouts of the USA as a new badge for the scout vest. This year’s funds will go toward a trip to Disney World a few years down the line and developing their Senior Scout Gold Award project, which will involve music.
Dixon, a former Girl Scout herself, agrees that both cookie sales and the organization have changed since she was a troop member.
“The program is still the same in terms of the fundamentals of wanting to teach girls the skills of building courage, confidence, and character,” she said. “But I like how Girl Scouts is keeping up with the needs of the modern girl.”
Cookie sales in particular have adapted to the digital landscape. For example, the digital cookie program allows Girl Scouts to build their e-commerce sites, and the organization now offers badges focused on cybersecurity, engineering, and STEM.
“I would’ve loved to have that opportunity when I was growing up as a girl,” Dixon said. “I like that the program is changing to the needs of what girls want.”
These changes also reflect what non-scouts want: easier access to cookies. In addition to filing online orders, customers can use Show Me the Cookies to find details on cookie booths in their zip code.
“We all love the taste of [Thin Mints],” Dixon said. “But this program is fueling girls’ dreams and also building future leaders.”