A group of local Girl Scouts and their parents joined Girl Scouts San Diego and RJS Law in Spring Valley in unveiling a special billboard celebrating the 2022 Girl Scout Cookie Season on Feb. 10. Located at Reslan Motors in Spring Valley, the billboard featured a photo of the nine girls to inform San Diego neighbors that the time is now to support local girls’ adventures in entrepreneurship and development business skills by purchasing Girl Scout cookies, directing them to the GSSD website to find a cookie source near them.
Girl Scouts San Diego CEO Carol Dedrich said the event was a “wonderful” event it does every year to build the momentum in the Girl Scout Cookie program across San Diego and Imperial counties.
“Each year we have a boothing season that starts a couple of weeks after we start the cookie program,” she said. “We have an amazing supporter with RJS Law who provides us with billboards throughout San Diego county to inspire customers and let them know that the program has started, and our girls are going to be out there in full force.”
Dedrich said they have no problem getting the scouts motivated about cookie season, but that this unveiling was special, as all the girls at the unveiling are on the billboard.
“They were excited to see it and be a part of it,” she said.
She said it all boils down to the scouts getting experience, exposure, and learning through the Girl Scouts.
“They got to be interviewed, take pictures, so all of that is learning, especially girl scouts that have never been involved in the media,” she said. “They were giddy and jumping for joy.”
Dedrich said one of the positive things that the girl scouts have learned through the pandemic is finding other ways of doing things. She said one thing the girls learned was selling cookies through digital marketing.
“They are an entrepreneurial business,” she said. “They are all cookie entrepreneurs, and they are all CEOs of their own business. They got to learn how to set up their own web page, which features the varieties and the information about their goals, why they selected their goal, what they are doing with the funds, many of them choosing community service to support throughout the county. Many of them are doing videos, speaking in front of a camera. All of this interesting and exciting learning was part of the program that expanded last year and is continuing to be part of the program this year.”
Dedrich said there is a digital cookie app the scouts are using to market their business, and due to social media, and their age, they can only market to individuals that they know in their circle, or circle of their families as a way of protecting them, so the app is not out there in the public.
Dedrich said it does have an app, called the Cookie Locator for anyone to download on their phone, put in your zip code and find where the scouts are boothing near you.
“You can order from them directly, make donations for our military for packages that will be sent overseas,” she said.
Dedrich said the cookie program is that it is a program for girls.
“It is the largest entrepreneurial program in the world for girls,” she said. “It focuses on teaching girls five skills: money management, business ethics, goal setting, decision making, and people skills.”
The funding brought in from the cookie program helps fund the Girl Scout troops and their activities, as well as their community service activities, and it helps fund the local organization. All proceeds stay here in San Diego and support the local organization. It provides the ability to offer camp every year to the girls, provides STEM programs, leadership experience program, offers financial assistance to girls who come from low-income families, because we never want to turn away a girl scout who cannot afford to be involved. It is an incredibly important program that we do every year, and quite frankly, it has made a remarkable difference in our society, as many executives that are currently in business today got their start as a Girl Scout cookie entrepreneur.”
For more information, visit www.sdgirlscouts.org.
