Three area girls enter Girl Scout hall of fame

NEW ORLEANS — Morgan City’s Abigail Clements sold 560 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies and Berwick’s Zoe Gonzales sold 540 and Kennedy Hill sold 511 to be the Tri-City area’s highest sales representatives. By selling more than 500 boxes, they entered the Girl Scouts Louisiana East’s Cookie Hall of Fame.
Girl Scouts proved their sales ability once again during this year’s Cookie Program, selling more than 1 million boxes of cookies in the Girl Scouts Louisiana East 23-parish jurisdiction. Girls averaged 152 boxes each.
The sale boasted a 2 percent increase over the previous year, with a total of 1,031,063 boxes sold, according to Vice President of Sales Alisha Moore.
For the first time ever, Girl Scouts were able to sell cookies over the Internet using personalized websites, which accounted for 1 percent of the total sale.
“Adding the Digital Cookie web platform as another sales channel definitely helped our sale,” said Moore.
A total of 211 girls entered Girl Scouts Louisiana East’s Cookie Hall of Fame for selling 500 boxes or more of cookies, including 15 girls who sold more than 1,000 boxes, and one “Cookie Mogul” — Girl Scout Cadette Elise Vickery of New Orleans who sold 2,501 boxes, becoming this year’s top seller.
“I love selling cookies and making customers happy,” said Vickery, 12. Vickery has sold 1,000-plus boxes the last several years, and recommends being very polite and maintaining eye contact with potential customers when selling cookies, especially during booth sales.
Girl Scout Cookies are also donated through the council’s Gift of Caring and iGive programs, where customers pay for cookies for troop-selected, community organizations and non-profits. More than 10,000 boxes of cookies were donated through Gift of Caring to nearly 200 local organizations such as food banks, firefighters, police, and hospitals, with a significant number of cookies going to military men and women serving overseas.
The council also distributed nearly 6,000 boxes to Blue Star Mothers, the Second Harvest Food Bank, and the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank through iGive, which allowed customers purchasing cookies online to donate cookies as well.
While it is the participation in the Cookie Program that provides troops their funding for troop activities, trips and community service projects, girls also received individual recognitions such as patches, T-shirts, and journals with some top awards including electronics, cookie dough, a free week at resident camp, and a “Diva Destination,” for girls who sold 500+ boxes, where they select which destination(s), i.e. museum, restaurant, or other entertainment opportunity being offered.
Girls who sold 500+ boxes are invited to a day at Gulf Island Water Park in June and those who sold 750+ boxes are also invited to a “Cookie CEO” event — a tea party.
Girl Scout’s mission is to build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place. Girl Scouts Louisiana East serves girls in grades K-12 in the parishes of Ascension, Assumption, East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Iberville, Jefferson, Lafourche, Livingston, Orleans, Plaquemines, Pointe Coupee, St. Bernard, St. Charles, St. Helena, St. James, St. John, St. Mary, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Terrebonne, Washington, West Baton Rouge, and West Feliciana.
For more information, call the council office in New Orleans at 504-733-8220, in Baton Rouge at 225-927-8946, or visit its website at www.gsle.org.