Although these digital tools are optional for scouts, the Girl Scouts organization believes they help develop skills that are essential for today’s entrepreneurs. While some scouts seized on these new digital opportunities after they launched, others were slower to catch on. But with the pandemic curtailing in-person sales, digital cookie sales have skyrocketed: They now make up 10% of overall cookie sales for the organization.
“This is really the direction our world is going in,” Olson said. “[The digital cookie platform] provides this hybrid model for those who choose to engage in the digital side.”
A brief history of door-to-door cookie sales
With this shift to online sales, some parents and caregivers worry that a new generation of scouts will be deprived of opportunities to hone their public-speaking skills, build their self-confidence, and learn about their community.
For generations, Girl Scouts have been canvassing their neighborhoods. It all started in 1917, when a troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, whipped up batches of homemade sugar cookies. By the 1960s, door-to-door cookie sales were ingrained in American culture.
“We would go door to door through our neighborhood, and we always went with a partner,” recalled Laura Harvey, a retired teacher in Sacramento who spent her entire childhood in the 1960s and ’70s as a scout. “It was just very sweet, going around with a wagon and delivering all the cookies. [Neighbors] would be so excited to get them.”
Harvey remembers being a shy, gawky kid, but door-to-door sales helped her feel more comfortable and confident talking to people, especially adults.
“You’re wearing your uniform and that was so special. You’re presenting yourself as a Girl Scout, and people respond very positively to that.”
The Girl Scouts cookie program was established to teach scouts five key life skills: goal setting, decision-making, people skills, money management and business ethics. Olson emphasizes that the girls are still getting those skills whether sales are made in person or online. She argues that in today’s wired world, a scout’s online community is just as important as her physical community.
Striking a digital/in-person balance
Despite the ease and convenience of online sales, many scouts like 9-year-old Gianna Salcedo — daughter of reporter Ana Tintocalis Salcedo — continue to stand by the tried-and-true methods of door-to-door cookie sales.
Salcedo joined the Girls Scouts just before cookie season began in January, and has been practicing her “cookie sales pitch” a few nights a week.
“I like going door to door because you actually get to meet the people in your neighborhood who want the cookies,” Salcedo said. “I like being able to tell them about the cookies and I feel good when they buy from me.”
Salcedo has also been exploring some of the new tech tools available to scouts. Many Girl Scouts families see the value in the online sales, but are trying to strike the right balance.
Experts believe the key is for parents or caregivers to establish boundaries, while also finding opportunities for young girls to engage with technology in a meaningful and safe way.
“The best thing we can do for our children is to teach them how to be appropriately digitally engaged in society,” said Dorian Traube, co-director of the Center for the Changing Family at the University of Southern California. “Probably the worst thing we can do is not prepare our kids and then turn them out into this Wild West world.”
Traube speaks from experience.
In addition to being an associate professor of social work at USC, she’s also a Girl Scouts mom and troop leader. She believes the Girl Scouts are doing a phenomenal job in teaching scouts the importance of digital citizenship, by offering programs, workshops and activities on a wide variety of topics, from social media safety to cyberbullying.
from WordPress https://ift.tt/5iLmlIg
via IFTTT
No comments:
Post a Comment