For those who ordered, Girl Scout cookies are here. How do the rest of us get them?
No little red wagons being pulled around neighborhoods, overflowing with boxes.
No answering your doorbell to a smiling, uniformed child asking assuredly — or maybe shyly, depending on how unpracticed she is — if you would like to buy some cookies.
No making a beeline for the table set up outside your neighborhood store. (Or trying to dodge it, if you already have enough boxes at home but can’t bear to say no to the entreaties of those adorable Daisies and Brownies.)
Yes, Girl Scout cookie season could not escape the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, the biggest impact was that cookie booths shut down a week earlier than scheduled. But for this year, Girl Scouts of the USA has adapted its sales methods to keep girls and their families and customers safe while still serving up their iconic snacks.
At the delivery of truckloads of Thin Mints, Caramel deLites and other varieties Thursday morning at the Stanislaus County Fairground, area Girl Scouts spokeswoman Sara Hanson said, “Over the past year, the Girl Scouts’ programming has gone virtual. We’ve really been trying to work with our girls in a fashion that was in keeping with the spirit of Girl Scouts even though we couldn’t be together.
“That naturally lent itself to preparing for these types of sales as well. There’s been a lot of instruction through the troop level and then their service unit, which is the level above that, to make sure that they were prepared and knew how they could best sell cookies during this time period.”
Thursday’s megadrop, as it’s called, was of 9,315 cases — that’s 111,780 packages — of cookies that area Scouts pre-ordered for contact-free delivery to customers.
In normal years, orders are taken a variety of ways, including taking order forms door to door, making the rounds at a parent’s workplace and reaching out to friends and family by phone and social media.
Phone and social media play a big part this year. But door knocks and workplace drop-ins? Not so much.
To make up for lost ground, Scouts are doing things like leaving door hangers around their neighborhoods to let people know there’s a Scout they can buy cookies from, Hanson said.
For those who get no door hanger and know no Scout, the best way to land cookies is to go online to GirlScoutCookies.org. There, customers enter their ZIP code to be matched with a local troop that will have the cookie order shipped straight to the buyer’s home.
Girl Scouts Heart of Central California, the council that includes Stanislaus, Merced, San Joaquin and Tuolumne counties, is covering 50% of the shipping costs on orders of six or more packages of cookies.
On Feb. 19, Modesto troops also will launch a partnership with the Grubhub delivery service. Specific days and times can be found on the Grubhub app.
There will be no cookie tables outside storefronts unless a county reaches the red tier of COVID-19 risk. If that happens before cookie season ends, the Heart of Central California council will work with troops “host booths as appropriate,” according to a news release.
One bit of good news, Hanson said, is that cookie season has been extended two weeks and now ends March 28.
There’s a new cookie this season, too. It’s called Toast-Yay and is a French toast-inspired cookie dipped in icing. On the downside, this is the last year to purchase S’mores, the crunchy and creamy melding of graham sandwich cookies, chocolate and marshmallow.
The other available varieties are the aforementioned Thin Mints and Caramel deLites, along with Peanut Butter Patties, Lemonades, Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Shortbread and Caramel Chocolate Chip.
The price this year is $5 per package for all varieties except the gluten-free Caramel Chocolate Chip, which is $6.
This story was originally published February 15, 2021 at 12:35 PM.
