Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Members of local Girl Scout Troop 5429 gather behind their table set up to sell Girl Scout cookies at the Super One grocery store in Ironwood on Friday. From left are: first row - Evelynn Hembree, Natalie Sackmann and Ivy Bromley; and second row - troop leader Denise Bromley and troop helper Emily Sackmann.
By LARRY HOLCOMBE
Ironwood - Local Girl Scouts are marking their an annual rite of spring with the selling of Girl Scout cookies across the region.
A group of Junior Girl Scouts with local Troop 5429 -- Natalie Sackmann, Evelynn Hembree, Ivy Bromley and Azaylia Jewell -- set up a table to sell cookies on Friday at 5 p.m. at Super One grocery store in Ironwood. It was just one of several planned pop-up shop cookie selling booths planned for the region by the troop this month.
Troop leader Denise Bromley said they have 11 scouts. She said they meet once or twice a month to work on various projects and play games. The third and fourth graders are Brownies, while the fifth and sixth graders are Juniors.
The scouts had made posters to spread the word and set out nine varieties of cookies in a variety of brightly colored boxes and packages. Not only were the boxes set out in neat rows on the table with a banner displaying their troop's number, but they also had a tall rack that customers could turn to find their favorite cookie.
Everyone seems to have their favorite, even the scouts. Natalie Sackman likes the Adventurefuls, Hembree the Caramel Delights, and Ivy Bromley said she is partial to the Thin Mints.
The annual cookie sale is the troop's largest fundraiser. Some of the proceeds will help fund a trip to the Wisconsin Dells this summer.
Denise Bromley said the cookie sales do more than just raise money. She said it teaches the girls independence as well as team work, customer service skill and even about making change.
The Scouts were also collecting money in canisters sitting on the table to go towards the purchase of cookies for residents of local nursing homes and to send to members of the military.
Girl Scout cookies were also the center of a downtown Ironwood First Friday prize drawing this past week. Another troop was set up in front of Snow's Market in Mercer on Saturday morning. Other troops across the U.P. and northern Wisconsin will be out in force this month selling cookies in front of businesses and near busy intersections.
Troop 5429 has a variety of pop-up shop cookie booths planned in Ironwood and Hurley through the month, including Saturday at Pat's Foods from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and at Walmart on Sunday from 1:30 to 5 p.m. Visit felivelife.org for a schedule.
Girl Scouting will celebrate its 112th birthday this coming week. Founder Juliette Gordon Low organized the first Girl Scout troop on March 12, 1912, in Savannah, Georgia.
Girl Scout Week is celebrated each March, starting with Girl Scout Sunday and ending with Girl Scout Sabbath on a Saturday, and it always includes Girl Scouts' birthday, March 12 -that's Tuesday, as good a day as any to buy a box of Girl Scout cookies and help support the cause.
