Girl Scouts Offer Online Cookie Sales During COVID-19 Crisis

On my way into the supermarket several weeks ago, I saw a Girl Scout troop setting up a folding table on the sidewalk, getting ready to tape their handmade "BUY YOUR COOKIES HERE" signs to the front of it. Brightly colored boxes of cookies were stacked beside them, and I told myself I'd pick up a weekend's worth of Thin Mints (that's like four boxes, if I'm being honest) on my way out of the store.

Instead, I ended up leaving through a different door and forgot all about the cookies until I was craving them like mad a couple of hours later. I thought I could just hit the Scouts up the next time I went grocery shopping, but—and you all know where this is going—there wasn't a next time, because coronavirus happened instead.

I'd just about resigned myself to getting through this quarantine without the comforting crunch of those Thin Mints, and then the Girl Scouts posted the greatest tweet of all time. "Interrupting your scrolling and #COVID19 news with a sweet announcement: you can buy Girl Scout Cookies online," it wrote. "Order now and have them shipped to your door—or donate ‘em to comfort to [sic] first responders, frontline workers, and local causes in need."

This is not a drill: the Girl Scouts have set up a website—www.girlscouts.org/cookiecare—where you can order cookies and have them shipped right to your front door (make sure to use that actual website and not buy them elsewhere online). After typing your ZIP code, the site provides a list of Girl Scout councils in your area that are still in their "cookie season," and it also helpfully provides the date when they'll be mailing out orders, just in case you want to save the Tagalongs for a little later in your quarantine. (My sort-of local assortment of councils could send cookies anywhere between April 8 and May 30.)

And if you're feeling extra-generous, you can even buy boxes of cookies to donate, and the Girl Scout council that you've selected will distribute them to hospitals, medical centers, or first responders in their own local areas.

Some troops have already been giving healthcare providers and first responders a delicious pick-me-up. Daisy Troop 5088 of Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes ended up with 30 donated boxes of cookies from their local customers, and they passed those out to hospitals, pharmacists, and state troopers. And Troop 415 from the South Carolina Mountains to Midland Council gave 10 cases of cookies to two hospitals in Georgia and South Carolina, and gave another six cases to first responders in Aiken, South Carolina.

If you do decide to place an order online, each box of cookies sells for $5, and there's a four-box minimum order. But come on, has anyone ever said, "Oh no, I have too many Girl Scout cookies?"

No, of course they haven't. And—just an FYI—you can always freeze some of those Thin Mints.