In Early January, Dorié Le and Mary Jo Buchanan set out to achieve an impressive goal of selling 2,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. The girls accompanied by their Mother, Dorié braved frigid January and February temperatures and snow showers going door to door nearly every night. One of the two girls was present at every sale except a few that mom sold to some long distant friends and relatives. They surpassed their goal with a final tally of 2,080 boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas, Tagalongs, Do-si-dos and other scrumptious flavors of the annual delights.

Mary Jo and Dorié Le are all smiles!

The first shipment arrived on Thursday February 22, 2001. This totaled 800 boxes of the treats. Like last year when the girls sold 1,022 boxes, their van parked on the street and the family formed a cookie brigade to get the many cases of cookies into the house to prepare for distribution to the hungry customers. The usual flurry of activity that accompanies the arrival of Girl Scout cookies across the nation was present in the house. The second batch of cookies arrived a week later. “We are sure glad they didn’t all arrive at once,” said Dorié, “Our little office was packed as it was. I was glad we got most of the first shipment delivered before the others arrived!”

The Cookie Brigade Delivers

Selling the cookies is half of the battle. The task of delivering the cookies and collecting the money is sometimes more frustrating. Sometimes it is difficult to find the happy customers home on the first attempt to deliver them. Past experience shows that there may be several trips to complete some of the sales. There is a flurry of activity that goes on behind the scenes that unless you have experienced the art of selling Girl Scout cookies you will not appreciate. Getting the cookies into the house is just one task. Dorié has found a method that seems to work quite well. First you take an order card and color code the addresses according to the street. Then you gather all of those plastic grocery store bags that you have been saving for just such a special occasion. After the individual orders have been placed carefully into the bags and the name, address and the amount to collect is written on the bag with a black marker it goes into a box with all of the other orders for a particular street. You can only fill so many boxes before they need to be delivered or there will be no floor space left in the house.

The next step is to pack a few boxes in the car or van and head out to deliver them. This step must be done in a timely manner as there is a window of opportunity when most people are home. “We have found that the best time to find folks home is between 6:00 and 8:30 in the evening,” said Dorié.

It has been an everyday activity for the past two months, either taking orders or delivering them. There are some frustrating orders, like those people who move between the time the order is taken and delivery. The Girl Scouts are responsible for turning in the money on time and have to make up the difference until the order can be delivered to the customer.

The Girls share a photo op with Mom

Even with all of the hard work involved it has been a rewarding experience. Yes, the girls have realized some great lessons that they will carry with them throughout their entire lives. They learned that rewards and self esteem are the result of setting goals and working hard towards achieving them. When the last order is filled and they have camp to look forward to they will have grown in a way that is not measurable with a scale or yard stick. One thing is for certain, whenever these girls have a an obstacle to overcome or a goal that seems out of reach, they will be able to think about selling over 2,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the Colorado winter of 2001.