Here's how to send Girl Scout cookies to troops overseas
Girl Scouts will be taking door-to-door orders through Saturday for this year's cookies, but look for their deliveries - and goodwill - to last throughout the year.
Once again, they are partnering with the Palatine-based Yellow Ribbon Support Group to mount "Operation Cookie Drop," where customers can purchase extra boxes of cookies to be shipped to active military personnel overseas.
Since the Palatine volunteers began this caper, they have shipped some 12,300 boxes to soldiers in the Middle East, including 6,200 last year alone.
As boxes came in, Yellow Ribbon volunteers packed a tube of cookies - along with personal items and a small compact meal - in each flat-rate priority box they shipped.
"We anticipate another banner year," said Pat McCoy of Palatine, founder of the Yellow Ribbon Support Group.
Last year, they received boxes sold by troops in Arlington Heights, Cary, Hoffman Estates, Lincolnshire, Long Grove, Palatine and Schaumburg.
This year they are bracing for even wider support, so widespread they have doubled their storage space. After running out of room last year at the Palatine police station, a Schaumburg fire station has become a second drop-off point.
Door-to-door sales end Saturday, but Scouts will be posted outside grocery stores and shopping centers throughout February. You can also visit www.girlscoutsgcnwi.org or call (312) 416-2500 to find out where to buy cookies.
The Girl Scouts have unveiling two new types of cookies this year: the Daisy Go Rounds and the Dulce de Leche.
Daisy Go Rounds are named for the 5- and 6-year-old Daisy Scouts - reduced-fat, flower-shaped bite-sized cookies with a hint of cinnamon and packed in 100-calorie snack-packs.
By contrast, the Dulce de Leche is inspired by the classic confections of Latin America - sweet and indulgent, rich with milk caramel chips.
That makes eight varieties in all, including their all-time best-seller, Thin Mints. All boxes sell for $4, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting individual troops and their outings and projects.
Troops and Scouts who have received donations for the military will begin dropping off boxes for Yellow Ribbon after Feb. 1. Members of the support group will pick up donations beginning March 1.
The program has drawn such a positive response, McCoy says, because Girl Scout cookies are the ultimate symbol of home. She says soldiers overseas enjoy getting them, just as much as customers find it rewarding to send them.
As Girl Scouts go door-to-door, and take orders at site sales, they merely tell their customers how they can purchase an extra box for the troops. Military boxes are designated on their order forms and delivered to the drop-off locations.
For details on the Yellow Ribbon Support Group, visit www.yellowribbonsg.org.