Help Girl Scouts send 3,000 boxes of cookies to soldiers

Has a Girl Scout showed up at your door yet this week?

Did you buy a few boxes to satisfy your Thin Mint cravings, or did you turn away the girl, citing too many temptations for your 2008 diet?

Girl Scout cookie sales began Jan. 4 and troops have sent their girls out to sell cookies to fund their activities for the year.

Some Tri-Cities area Girl Scout troops are on another mission this year -- to collect 3,000 boxes of cookies for their 2008 Gift of Caring Program "For Our Soldiers."

So if you don't want boxes of cookies tempting you from your cupboard, you can send the $4 boxes to our soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf.

This is the fifth year that Geneva Troop 432 Leader Barbara Herrera-Snow and her daughter Brooke Snow and troops from St. Charles and Batavia have asked customers to donate boxes of cookies to send to America's military troops.

Snow is asking for help from North Aurora Girl Scouts this year to meet their new goal.

In 2004, Snow shipped 180 boxes of Girl Scout cookies to a Geneva High School graduate serving in Iraq. The Batavia VFW defrayed the shipping costs for the cases.

"(The graduate) was the hit of his platoon," Snow said. "He was handing out boxes to everyone."

Snow said that in 2005 her Geneva Girl Scouts sent 288 boxes of cookies to several soldiers.

In 2006, Snow shipped 480 boxes with help from Debbie Smothers, who heads Operation Care Package in Joliet.

The mission really took off in 2007.

"We blasted our previous record, sending 210 donated cases of cookies -- that's 2,520 boxes," Snow said.

Smothers approached Snow again this year with the names of 3,000 soldiers who need care packages from the States.

Smothers' son and brother have served in Iraq and platoon chaplains and troop leaders contact her and give her names of soldiers who do not receive packages from home. She's made it her mission to take care of those men and women and send them love from home.

"We filled up my dining room and my garage last year with cases of cookies," Snow remembered. Brooke sold 350 boxes and 100 went to the soldiers.

Two years ago, Snow made it mandatory that a personal note was attached to each box that left their home last year.

"Every box that leaves my home will have a note, a coloring, or a letter from a Girl Scout," she said.

Brooke wrote a poem called "What a 'Soldier' means to me" that appears on a half-sheet page attached to each box of cookies sent to the soldiers.

Barb Snow said she has received countless e-mail thank-yous to forward to the girls.

She forwarded a few of the best e-mails to the local Girl Scout leaders who are helping with the project.

"Today you made a dusty Marine smile 1000's of miles away from home. And let me tell you that's no easy task," read one e-mail.

"You are our number one sweethearts for the super effort you put into your cookie project," read another e-mail. "Please tell everyone involved that they have made some soldiers very happy."

"It means a lot when you think that everyone has forgotten you … then a box shows up from the States," wrote another soldier.

Last week Brooke submitted a proposal to her principal at Geneva Middle School-North asking to collect spare change in the principal's office to purchase cookies for the soldiers.

Principal Larry Bidlack approved of the idea and also said that she could put collection jars at the end of the lunch lines in the cafeteria.

After I talked to Snow, I brainstormed with my Daisy Girl Scout Mary about how we could help donate cookies.

We decided to donate our stash of spare change we collected in an oatmeal container. It turned out that we had $112.83 in change and so we are donating 28 boxes of cookies.

Now Mary will have to sit down and color 28 notes to attach to the boxes.

Here's what we can do to help in North Aurora. Contact Vega Service Unit Leader Patty Graw at (630) 254-7991 to help Snow reach her 3,000-box goal. She will take your check for each $4 box of cookies you donate to the soldiers.

Girl Scout sales continue through Jan. 21 with a delivery date after Valentine's Day.

Let's help Barbara Snow and Operation Care Package send more than 3,000 boxes of cookies to our soldiers.

Visit www.operationcarepackages.org to find out other ways to help our soldiers.

I'll report back the results in February.