There are several hot discussions on Facebook pages and Girl Scout forums that I read. Now that cookie season is over, the big debate is how to divide the profits from the Girl Scout cookie sales.
There seems to be a Solomon like question...do you exclude girls from activities or make their parents pay because they did not participate in cookie sales or sold very few boxes? Is it fair to have these girls ride the coattails of the others who worked the booths and/or went door-to-door or had parental help from social media and at the office?
While the debate was long and continuous on Girl Scout Moms on Babycenter.com and on the Facebook page Girl Scout Leader 411-Makingfriends.com, the correct answer is this...
Image by Hannah Gold and altered by the author on Canva
Cookie money is troop money, not the individual girl's money. If Sally sold 100 boxes and Lena sold 10, the profits that go to the troop are divided equally, as if each child sold the same amount.
You cannot cry "Not Fair!", as these are the rules that the Girl Scout of the USA have laid out. Individual girls, once they become Cadettes, can have individual accounts to pay for larger things, but for Daisy Scout, Brownies and Juniors, there can be no such thing.
If you tell parents they have to pony up the dough to make up the difference in what an event costs because their daughter did not sell "X" amount of cookies (and quotas are a no-no, too), they can report you to Council.
And you can get in trouble for this.
Is it worth it for a few dollars?
As an older mom who has been around the Mommy block before, life will throw you lots of things like this. I volunteer and make my leader time as stress free as possible. Like Princess Elsa, I learned to "let it go" on so many things. This is such a minor problem in the game of life...seriously. Wait until your Daisy Scout is in middle school or high school and you will see that stressing over cookie profits was a waste of your time and energy.
Do not discuss what each girl has sold and you will encourage your girls towards troop goals.
For more on this matter, you can read a more detailed blog post here on my other Girl Scout leader blog.
How did your cookie sales go this year?
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