Girl Scouts: More than cookie sellers

We put our research to the test and it turns out the Girl Scouts is a great organization.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and there's Trooper Jerry
Rowland out there somewhere their scout you know I'm talking about,

(00:23):
and this is stuff you should know. Be prepared. I
am prepared, Tosh. Yeah, I wonder if Jerry. I wonder
if Jerry was a girl Scout. I know we didn't
get a chance to ask because it's all business with hers.
She's just busy, busy, busy. I know she had to
leave to go to a meeting. But my guess is

(00:44):
that what do you think? I think, Yes, I think
there's actually a one in three chance that she was,
because Chuck, that is the stat, the astounding stat at
one and every three American adult women were a girl
Scout at some point in time. Yeah. I think they

(01:04):
are currently around the two point six million level, and
it varies between two and a half to three million,
kind of depending what's going on. And I think in
recent years it's numbers have gone down a little bit, uh,
and they're always trying to get those numbers up. So,
but but what what I've seen is that it is

(01:25):
remarkably steady, though it's it hovers around that same that
same amount, and I've seen that that's the total number
of Girl Scouts. Have also seen that that includes the
adult volunteers, and that at any given time there's about
one point seven million Girls Scouts active Girl Scouts in
the United States and that they usually hang in there
for about four years is the average length of time,

(01:47):
which is pretty good. That was longer than my boy
Scout or cub Scout run. I can tell you how
long was your run. I think it was not a year.
I had a real problem at a young age of
idea of giving respect to elders just because they were old.
Like I was like, no, I feel like there's a
lot of old jerks out there who don't really deserve

(02:09):
to be treated particularly special. So that was my big
issue with it. The problem is is my dad was
the den leader and he decided to be a good
role model and stick it out so without you, yes,
but with me watching TV like in the house at
the same time when they were having Yeah. So the

(02:31):
upshot of all this long story shorts my dad doesn't
really like me, right, Uh, that's the upshot of most
of your stories. Um My, cub Scouting lasted one meeting.
That was my tenure because I went to a cub
Scout meeting and I guess I went during the candy
drive and literally at the first meeting, they were like,

(02:54):
here's a bunch of candy. You gotta go sell this stuff.
And I kind of was just like, what, I don't
want to. I don't want to do this, Like I
don't even know what's going on yet. Yeah, I'm not
working for you. That's got to be an odd time
to jump in feet first, you know, you kind of
want to ease into it a little more. I guess so,
but it I didn't do it my and you know,
maybe we'll do one on the boy Scouts at some

(03:15):
point too. But my nephew Noah, who is now a
grown adult who was getting married next weekend. Actually, oh hey,
congratulations Noah. Yeah, no and Ella are getting married, which
is great, but he is now an adult college graduate.
But he scouted. He went all the way through, and
I was I always thought that was very cool and
that really shows a stick tuitiveness, whether you're a boy

(03:37):
scout or a girl scout. Um to go all the
way through the whole process. He's so Noah is Scott's son, right, correct, Yes, Yeah,
I'm not at all surprised that Noah made it an
Eagle Scout because also I'm sure that like when Scott
was born, there like just give this guy the Eagle badge. Now,
he didn't. He didn't boy scout either. He didn't need to.

(03:57):
He was an Eagle Scout by birth. Well, and we also,
you know, my dad raised his camping, so he was
always just sort of like, you guys don't need to
do that stuff because we do all that stuff anyway,
right right. Yeah, And plus also there's some dudes money,
you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's sort
of the thing. I think Girl Scouts dues money is

(04:18):
twenty five dollars annually. Uh, they do have financial assistance
and then you have to pay for some other you know,
program stuff along the way. But that is a very
low fee. And we'll get to this, but the reason
is low. It's because those Girls Scouts can print money
with those cookies. Yeah. I was not familiar with the
Girl Scout cookies until I started researching this episode. Oh min,

(04:43):
they print money, man, They make like four or five
million dollars a year off that thing. My friend, the
gross revenue I think last year was eight hundred million
dollars I'm sorry, in five hundred net I think five
or six Okay, yeah, And that's why those dudes are slow,
because they actually stay with the local councils, which we'll

(05:06):
we'll talk more about that. But speaking of Girl Scout cookies,
I want to give a shout out, um to a
couple of troops, one in particular, TROOPO, because my friend
Annabella King is a Girl Scout, a junior Girl Scout
in that troop. And yes she is the daughter of

(05:28):
Hum's very close friend. Uh wheezy and um. She actually
wrote a little bit about what it means to her
to be a Girl Scout. If I could share a
couple of passages, I think it really gets the point across.
I would love to hear it. So Annabella says, and
she's been doing this for years by now. She said
she's working on her Star or her Silver Award, which

(05:49):
there's bronze, silver, and gold, and these are like very
prestigious awards for a Girl Scout to go after. So
she said she's working on the silver one right now
and in parentheses it's something really good to have on
your resume, by the way, But she says that Girl
Scouts is a great opportunity for greater jobs in life.
Gives a pathway to pioneering your own business. They train

(06:11):
you to be an entrepreneur in the early stages of life.
And here's that cookie thing. Selling the cookies is the
way they examine your skill and take note of the
abilities you may have. It is also showing you what
real life situations may be like. For example, when having
a cookie stand out and advertising that you are selling something,
you have to put in some enthusiasm. You can't just

(06:32):
stand there and wait for others to come walking by
if interested. You have to grab their attention. She is
an up and coming person. She also says that back
when she was younger, so she's in the seventh grade,
she was saying that um to her before she was
in the Scouts, that Girl Scouts were just annoying little
girls selling cookies and stealing your money. But I have

(06:54):
to say that as probably what a lot of people
think as well. But Girl Scouts is something that impacts
the community. It brings people together. I love that I've
also got a quote from our good friend John Hodgeman,
who was a girl Scout, and he said, a Yale
man never talks about the girl Scouts. That's right, that's
a that's a great, like all purpose quote from Hodgeman. Yeah,

(07:15):
and you know what, that'll that's a joke that will
be lost on many people because it's a call back
to our Ivy League episode in three D that not
many people probably even got through because it was in
three D. So yeah, yeah, I guess sorry saying chuck, Yeah,
sorry about the three D episode everybody. We have made
sure that that will never ever ever happen again. All right,
Should we go back to the early days of girl Scouting.

(07:36):
We should. But while we're at it, I want to
give one more shout out to another Girl Scout troupe
I'm affiliated with two. I want to shout out Troops
seventeen one oh seven. That is my niece Mila at
the Movie Stars troupe. Oh that's great. I like to
call it Troope Beverly Hills. Shelly Long the leader Long,

(07:57):
Shelly Long, and she is actually the leader. Yeah, it's wonderful. Yeah,
all right, So let's go back in time. And congratulations
to both of those young ladies for pursuing this, because
what I learned from researching the Girl Scouts is that
it is a pretty great organization and they have, um
you know, I tried to dig into controversies and stuff

(08:17):
like that, but um, and I'm not disparaging the Boy Scouts.
They're great two or Scouts USA, but they they have
certainly had a little more controversy over the years in
the Girl Scouts. Well. One of the reason that the
Girl Scouts tend to be controversial is because they're inclusive. Yeah, exactly,
it's the problem that people have with girls because let
the other human being in there a little different than

(08:40):
the other human beings in this troop. That's the controversy
that comes up. Typically. Yeah, they have always been more conclusive.
I think in the nineteen fifties the Girl Scouts desegregated
and it's oh the way to nineteen seventy and a
lot of pressure from the Double A CP for the
Boy Scouts to do so. And also of note, Chuck
is by the time I'm the Boy Scouts fully integrated

(09:01):
their troops, the Girl Scouts were already on their first
African American President so they have in progressive from the
outset and then um, even though it took to the fifties,
I guess to integrate. They were um inclusive of girls
with disabilities too, because the woman who founded the Girl Scouts,
Juliette Gordon Lowe, UM, she was deaf. She became deaf

(09:26):
after an accident, so she made sure that girls with
disabilities were included from the get go. That's right, and
we want to shout out by name Gloria D. Scott,
first African American president of the Girl Scouts in nineteen.
But let's go back in time to Juliette Gordon Lowe,
who was a Southern gal from Savannah, Georgia. Yeah, no,

(09:51):
it's it sounded like a cross between Andy from the
Office doing a Southern thing and Kevin Spacey and Midnight
in the Garden of Good and Evil. Not good all
the way. Yes, Julia Gordon lowis from Savannah. She was
raised in the South, and um, you know I had
came from. I don't think it was like a rich
family or anything, but a family that was doing well

(10:12):
enough to where she got a really good education compared
to some of her peers. And she uh ended up
getting involved in a marriage that wasn't so great, a
husband that was um an alcoholic and a gambler and
a philanderer, and their whole marriage and divorce saga lasted many,
many years because it was a time where getting a

(10:33):
divorce wasn't super easy. And then he had a stroke
and she thought she maybe should stay with him, but
he had a mistress who he left his money too.
He eventually died during divorce proceedings. But long story short,
she ended up a widow and went to London where
she had a very faithful meeting at a luncheon party
one day with Sir Robert Baden Powell. Yes, and this

(10:55):
guy is the guy who co founded the Scouts, the
Boy Scouts and the Girl Hides. If you are a
at least back in the day, if you were a
Girl Scout over in the UK, you were a member
of the Girl Guides. But they're all affiliated under a
single umbrella, basically a whole a bunch of different scouting

(11:16):
groups around the world. And at first Um Juliette Low
her nickname was Daisy by the way, Um, she was
a Scout leader, a troop leader for Girl Guides over
in England, but when she moved back to the United
States full time, she said, I'm gonna set up my
own shop basically based on my experience that is there.
And she set up the first Girl Scout troop meeting

(11:38):
in March of I believe nineteen twelve, um, and it
included eighteen girls and the first registered Girl Scout was
her niece, uh Daisy Gordon, who I take it was
named after her. That's wonderful. And I think they were
even called the Girl Guides at first. Oh is that right?
I think so, And I should have had that down Cole,

(12:00):
but I'm pretty sure that I saw that. But regardless,
they either were Girl Scouts initially or became Girl Scouts.
And you know, she just the whole thing appealed to her,
teaching girls, um how to be self sufficient, how to
know their way around a campfire, how to um be
meaningful to their community as a lot of community service involved.

(12:20):
It really all spoke to her. And these days you
can get involved in the Girl Scouts if you're between
five and seventeen and they are broken down thussly uh
Daisy Scouts, which I guess comes from Juliette's name right,
her nickname Daisy Scouts with the little list the most adorable.
I imagine brownies. I never knew that. I thought brownies

(12:44):
was the first step in. So Daisies come before Brownies.
Then you have your Junior Scouts, and then Girl Scouts
rounded out with eleven to seventeen year olds. And I
believe they used to be Cadet, seniors and ambassadors, but
um now those are the names that they take. I've
seen them heard two still as Cadets and ambassadors on
the Girl Scout site, so still use that some, I

(13:06):
guess so. But yeah, once you once you reach a
certain age, I guess eleven, they lump you in together
with all of the older girls. That's right. The Daisies
are five and six, like I said, and they meet
with a couple of adult leaders. They earned pedals learning pedals,
which is super super awesome and sweet. I mean, this
whole thing is overflowing with just you know, sugary goodness.

(13:28):
Well yeah, and those petals too. They're based on the
ten points of them the Girl Scout Law, which are
things like, you know, be considerate and caring. So that's
a pedal courageous and strong as a pedal, honest and
fair responsible for what you say and do. So it's
like some pretty great, you know, character development from a
very young age. Yeah, and those ten laws are also

(13:50):
represented by the Girl Scout dime, isn't that right? Yes,
so you can get a free dime just by becoming
a Girl Scout because one of the ceremonies is time,
the ceremony of the dime, and that dime ten cents
represents the ten points of the Girl Scout law. And
the girl Scouts are like, wait a minute, I just
gave you. They're like, you just learned your first life lesson, chump,

(14:13):
Welcome to the Scouts. But regardless of which group you're on,
you are earning these pedals, these badges, these patches in
various ways. A lot of times it's by completing a
craft project. Uh. Sometimes an older group may like present
the American flag at a professional baseball game. Uh. Sometimes

(14:35):
there's a lot of stem activity these days. Yes, Uh,
you know, it's just started out sort of with more
you know, as as you would think back in the
nineteen thirties, things like cooking and stuff like that, and
I think they still don't shy away from that. But
these days it's all about STEM and getting girls into science, technology, engineering,
and math and uh, you know they're doing full on

(14:56):
coding and stuff like that. So they really kind of
rolled with the times. Yeah, and a lot of that
develops over time. So like if you're a Daisy, they'll
start introducing you to that STEM stuff where it's like,
you know, this is a car, draw a picture of
a car, and it's kind of like automotive engineering. Is
that just the very beginnings of it. But then by
the time you're like a Brownie, you're like building prototypes

(15:18):
of a car that's of your own design. So it
starts to progress pretty quickly. And then yeah, coding is
a really big one too, So there's like a foundation
of those kind of things. Um, but it just gets
a little more advanced as the girl goes through the
Scout ranks. Yeah, and I gotta say, you know, it
really struck me today how brilliant the badge ideas for

(15:40):
boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and giving kids something to
work for and like seeing them through to an endpoint
of a goal so they can earn something because kids
really love to earn a little prize for accomplishing something.
It's really meaningful. Yeah, they Aside from these individual rule
things that they can earn, there are also group service

(16:03):
projects where the whole troop where they you do a
lot of community service. They might collect food and clothing
for a homeless shelter, or they might decorate a nursing
home over holidays, uh and stuff like that. And the
older they get, you know, the more the more advanced
these things are, and the more um not autonomy necessarily,
but just just the more advanced these projects are that

(16:26):
they can bite off. Yeah, and as they get older,
they're expected to do projects on their own community service projects. Um.
They go, they do what are called journeys where they
learn about a new thing. Um, and they that my
friend Annabella says that this past winter or no, this
coming winter, they'll they will likely buy a bunch of
clothes and presents for two or three families who do

(16:49):
not have enough money. We will then wrap the gifts
and someone brings it to that family. This is just
a great example. Sure, as they progress, and you know,
by the time they're in that final group of el
Scouts from eleven to seventeen, they start to focus on
potential careers and what these girls are interested in and
what they might want to do, and then steering them

(17:09):
towards that, whether it's um eco action and environmentally friendly
and cleaning up parks and stuff like that. But all
of these service projects and all of this stuff is
really all about just building skills as well as building
confidence absolutely absolutely and independence and UM self reliance and

(17:33):
also just kind of being like a generally good person too,
you know, not self reliance or independence by taking advantage
or exploiting others weaknesses, but becoming independent and self reliant
while also being like a person of character and somebody
you can trust. It's important that second part is important too. Yeah,
that's tech bro camp that you were talking about, right,

(17:54):
or farmer broke farmer brokemp. Oh boy, let's take a
break on that one and discuss whether we'll even edit
that out. No, let's leave it. Okay, we'll be right
back everybody. I'm still laughing at that. That's good. That's

(18:32):
a good sign, chuck. UM. So, yes, there's a lot
of focus on STEM careers now UM or just even
interested in STEM hobbies like coding, UM. But there's also
like still very a very large emphasis on being outdoorsy,
you know, UM, which is one of the original things
that the Girl Scouts were into back when Juliet Gordon

(18:54):
Lowe was uh, the founder and still active, and she
like poured herself into this, by the way, says like
we really breathed past her biography. But she was a
very interesting, very worthwhile human being with very little of that.
You know, when you're talking about somebody from a hundred
years ago, you're like and then well, it just kind

(19:15):
of glaze over this because she was a proctor of
her time. Now, she was a very progressive person who
would fit in quite well today, I think. Um, and
she she was just a good person. But um, she
emphasized things like outdoors nous in addition to you know,
learning how to cook and run a home, um, that
kind of stuff. So that that whole emphasis is still

(19:36):
around today with things like camping. Um, that's still a
big part of being a Girl Scout is spending time
at camp and spending time outdoors too. Yeah, Brownies, I
think by the time you were a Brownie and then
a junior and then a full on Girl Scout, you
definitely go on camping trips. You go on overnight trips
sometimes there at established camps. Sometimes it's a little more

(19:58):
of rustic kind of style camp thing. Uh. Sometimes they
Scout leaders can kind of bite off all of their
responsibility if they're comfortable with that, And sometimes they go
to places where they have what's called a core staff
who are kind of doing meals and stuff like that.
There's really no exact setway it can go down, but
the point is is to get these girls out in

(20:18):
the woods, adventuring, building campfires, rock climbing, doing crafts. Making
s'mores um just something that really speaks to me and
that I really believe in, of course, because I grew
up doing that stuff. And by the way, if you
like smores like I do, I like s'mores anything, sure
you can thank the Girl Scouts for that, because they
are the ones with the first recorded recipe for smore

(20:44):
yes um back. I don't know if they invented it,
but they told everybody else about it. Back in there
was a Girl Scout handbook that had the first printed
recipe for s'mores. It was so old timey. They were
called some moors. They wasn't It wasn't turned into a
contraction until the seventies. I never knew that's what it's for.

(21:06):
I never thought about it what. I don't know. I
just I was just called them smores. I never thought
about the fact that it was a contraction. It stands
for some mores some mores, yeah, because once you have one,
you want some more. Yes. But apparently in this article
it says that while they're called some moors, just one
is plenty filling. Basically, I'm paraphrasing, I got a level

(21:28):
up recommendation for your small game. And I'm a small traditionalist.
I don't like to get too fancy, but I have
lately started. Um, I'll get the Garadelli dark chocolate caramel
square instead of a regular old Hershey. I'll throw one
of those dark chocolate caramel s'more squares in there, and

(21:49):
it's really pretty good. The addition of the caramels nice. Yeah, basically,
and I'm so sorry to the good people of Pennsylvania.
But the Hershey chocolate is is basically anything is level
up from that, as long as it's not like the
generic store brand version of chocolate, not really good chocolate.
To tell you, there's so much better chocolate out there,

(22:10):
especially if you travel eastward across the Atlantic. All the
chocolate over there is amazing. And then if you keep
going east and you hit Japan. All of their chocolate
is amazing, and then you come back around you're like,
we're back to Hershey again, although you hit Gary Delli
Square first, and then you keep going eastward and you
hit Pennsylvania and things get sad. Is Japan has good chocolate.

(22:32):
Oh yes, Maisie chocolate products. They make a chocolate covered almonds,
chocolate covered bacadamia nuts, and you can get them here
in the States. Just I'll get you something and you
can take me forever. Okay. Oh, by the way, I
should tell everyone you you very sweetly sent a postcard
to me with the Fred Rogers stamp and you set
here to start your stamp collection. Yes, yeah, I'm good,

(22:54):
I got it. Man. Uh. We should also mention quickly
that if you do not have a girl Scout troop
near you, or if you just would rather freestyle it,
you can become a Juliette named after um Juliette obviously.
And that is just sort of it seems like in
something you do on your own, maybe with your parents help,
you can still earn badges and stuff like that and

(23:16):
just pay a smaller fee. But you're not I think
officially part of a troop. No, but you're part of
a council, and so we we should we should say
that the Girl Scout organizations are divided into councils UM,
which I think there's by my account literally accounted. I
went on the Wikipedia page and counted all the councils UM,
and it's like a hundred and thirty. I can't believe.

(23:39):
I didn't write down the exact number after going to
that trouble, but it's like a hundred and thirty councils
around the United States. That includes like Puerto Rico, UM,
and a couple of other areas. But there's a hundred
and thirty councils. And then the councils are further divided
into troops and UM. The I don't remember what you
said that made me think about to start talking think

(24:00):
about councils and troops the Juliets. Oh, yes, but if
you're a Juliet, if you're basically a solo Girl Scout,
you can do all the same things that a girl
Scout does with an adult mentor. But you're a member
of the council. You're just not a member of a troop.
But like when the troops get together for like a
GM brie or um then go to camp. You might
be affiliated with the troop or something You're just you've

(24:21):
lived too far away to go to like the weekly
meetings basically, but in boy, I hope those girl scouts
are nice to those Juliets. I hope so too. It
kind of made my stomach a little upset thinking about
what it must like for Juliet. I was thinking that
a Juliet that takes a leadership position at like a
council meeting or something like that deserves like double the patches,

(24:43):
because you know, you could really easily be like a
shrinking Violet in a situation like that. I know, I
would you have like that kind of like tenacity and
self confidence to to you know, be yourself in front
of a group that like hangs out with one another
every week. It seems like, you know, hats off to
the Juliets, I guess, is what I'm saying. Yeah, I

(25:05):
like the idea of Josh Clark going around the country
to these meetings and just saying, raise your hand if
you're a Juliet, double that girl's patches. And there everyone's like,
who is this guy who I don't think he's allowed here. Yeah,
I didn't actually see that. Are there Is it exclusively
female leadership as far as the troops go, or can

(25:26):
dadoum by the River Valley Council. I'm not quite sure
what what area they are in charge of, but um,
they had a handy handbook about you can be a
male girl Scout leader. That's great. You can you can
rely on the fact that there will always be a
female co leader president with you. They would never leave

(25:48):
you alone with the girls. Yeah, that's good. I wasn't sure,
but I figured there are plenty of dads who would
want to be involved, especially if you're a single father,
that you wouldn't want to be shut out of something
like that, that kind of fun activity. So that's great. Yeah,
they're so well known for being inclusive that they're like, no,
we can do this. There's there's a way to do this.
You know. That's great. Uh, they wear their these days,
and I think for a long time they have their uniform,

(26:11):
which I think it used to be more of a
full uniform kind of head to toe, and now you
kind of wear your regular clothes and you might have
a sash or a vest or something or scorts, as
this how stuff works are Oh it does scorts. Scorts.
It's that's such an ugly word to hear, but seeing
it written down it's even worse somehow, uh it is. Um,

(26:33):
there was one other thing. I'm sorry. I want to
give another shout out to a different um sentence in
this how stuff Works an article, because it is so
like two thousand ten how stuff Works, so that it's
talking about how one of the traditions of girl scouting
is to take ashes from a campfire and save it
until the next time you build a fire, and then

(26:54):
you put those ashes in that fire. So there's this
continuous kind of chain of fires no matter where you
build the fires or win. And then it says, um,
if more than one scout collects ashes, they're pooled before
adding them to the camp fire, as if there anyone
would have even thought about what might happen if more

(27:15):
than one scout collected ashes, as if they would say, no, no, no, don't.
Scout is much more good looking and popular than you.
Your ashes are you just dump them on the ground
right now, We're going to put only Jenny's ashes in. Yeah,
we don't want your garbage ashes. I know that. I
mean that was us. Yeah, I don't think I have

(27:37):
written this one. You did. I don't think I did.
I don't think I did either. So Uh, speaking of inclusivity,
the Latina population, by one in three girls in the
United States will be Latina and it is a really
growing population. And the Girl Scouts of America recognize this.
They've created Spanish language website. Uh, they have bilingual camps.

(28:01):
They try to incorporate some of the culture into their meetings. Uh.
And and I think from a two thousand eleven to
two thousand sixteen, Anna Maria Chavez served as the CEO
as the first woman of color, and today that is
Judith Batty who was the CEO, who was the first
African American woman. She is a former Scout herself from

(28:23):
Nassau County, New York, which is just great. And I
think a lot of times, if you scouted when you
were young, you grow up and try and pass along
that tradition to your children and at least try to
get them involved in then serve as as a Scout leader. Yeah.
I think some some really high number like pent of
former Girl Scouts end up volunteering for Scouts when they

(28:45):
have kids. That's right, um, And then all you said
that Judith Batty was the first African American CEO. People
are probably like, what a minute. You guys mentioned a
woman named Glory back in the seventies. She was the
first African American president CEO of the relative a new
position for Girl Scouts. I think in the twenty one
century it was created. Can we talk about these cookies?

(29:07):
Have we taken a second break yet? No? We should
take a second break because I need to go gather
some cookies to fortify myself before we start talking about
cookies for like ten minutes. Alright, go get a cookie, everybody. Okay,

(29:46):
I'm ready cookie time. Like you said, eight hundred million
in sales I have from and it was about the
same in twenty nineteen. I think, yeah, my friend, that
is more than OREO generates into giving. That's amazing. And
this idea goes way way back. In nineteen seventeen, a

(30:06):
Girl Scout troop makes some cookies. Troop from Muskogee, Oklahoma
shout out the high school cafeteria as their service project.
And then in nineteen twenty two, in their publication The
American Girl, they gave out the recipe, and they basically
said right away, hey, listen, we're gonna make some money
off these, because you can make six or seven dozen

(30:29):
of these for a little more than a quarter up
to thirty five cents, and we're gonna sell them for
that amount per dozen. And they were like, this is
how we're gonna fund our organizations. And people loved them.
I mean, it's become a part of American tradition, is
the Girl Scout cookie drive because that's the only place
you can get these exact cookies and people love them,

(30:50):
including me. Yeah, so yeah, they're good cookies, of course, obviously,
without question, the tagalongs are the best of the best
by far. That is my number two. Oh you're kidding?
What is number one? The docy dough is my favorite,
which is the peanut butter sandwich. I always find those
hard to find? Are they? Are they out every year? Oh? Yeah,

(31:12):
they're the third most popular. Maybe I'm just like, no,
I'm set on the tag alongs and I've always skipped
over the docy Does all have to try those? Those
are your number one? Huh? Number one is a docio
dosy do tag along is my number two? And then
I will rock a Samoa. Even though I'm not the
biggest coconut fan, I will still rock up Samoa. Okay.
So one of the things you'll see about Samoa's, which

(31:33):
were introduced in nineteen seventy four. By the way, um,
they are frequently called Caramel d Lights depending on where
in the country you are, because there are two bakeries
in the in the country in the world I guess
that are licensed to make Girl Scout cookies every year,
and depending on the bakery, they're either producing Caramel Delights

(31:55):
or Samoa's, And I guess the bakery decides what they
want to call and people will say that's the only difference.
Those people are liars, liars, liars. There is actually a
very big difference between Samoa's and Caramel Delights. Samoa's are
made with dark chocolate. Caramel Delights are made with milk chocolate,
which means, having only ever had Samoa's, I have not

(32:16):
truly lived yet, because I can imagine a Samoa with
milk chocolate rather than dark chocolate is probably exponentially better,
unless the milk chocolate they use as Hershey's, Oh you
would rather have the milk chocolate? Yes? Oh? Interesting? Yeah, totally.
You're a dark chocolate guy. Huh. I mean I like
all chocolate. I'm a chocolate lover. But um, I do

(32:39):
like dark chocolate. Developer will taste for it in the
best fifteen years or so. Okay, Yeah, I mean like
I I would. I just wouldn't even go near it
when I was a kid. I think because I ate
some Baker's chocolate once, like I learned a harsh lesson,
even though it was the wrong lesson. Um. But yeah,
I think it's an adult thing. Like you don't like
Scotch when you're eight, but you love Scotch when you're thirty.

(33:01):
You know, Yeah, when you're eight, you're totally a beer person. Sure.
I think by popularity, thin mints are lead the way
with sales. Summos a number two at nine, dosy does
or number three at sixteen, and then tag alongs come
in at thirteen, and then you've got your your tree

(33:23):
foils at number seven. I'm sorry with seven percent, and
those are the short bread cookies. But there's still such
a staple that I believe trefoils are one of the
leading ones in production at least, so tree foil or
trefoil if you've ever wondered what that means. That's actually

(33:43):
it's it's I think both work man um the the
uh the I was just gently trying to put out
the alternate so um. It's actually referring to the shape
of the cookie. And remember we talked about in the
Adidas versus Puma episode, the Adidas logo as a trefoil
has three lobes. Well that that three lobes shape, it

(34:04):
actually looks like four, but the bottom ones supposed to
be kind of like a point. It refers to a
clover that was part of the original logo for the
Girl Scout cookies that was turned into It was kind
of blown up and really kind of turned into this
minimalist icon by a very famous and incredibly prolific um

(34:25):
logo designer named Saul Bass. Oh yeah, he did uh
Hitchcock posters, Oh he did. He did the Shining poster,
the very famous the Shining Poster. Um, he did Minol,
Warner Brothers, Kleenex, Dixie Cup, the Hanna Barbaras Star, a
T and T United Way, I mean basically everything. And

(34:48):
one of the signature things about Saul Bass's logos is
the ones that he created in the seventies are still
in use today. Like they may have you know, made
him like three dimensional or chain the color slightly, but
it's basically the same thing. That guy was that good.
But he came up with this. Um this, this new
updated trefoil version of the girl Scout logo back in

(35:11):
nineteen seventy nine, and they're still using it today. And
if you look closely, it is um The three lobed
clover that was part of the original logo makes up
the hair of the girls. And there's three girls. The
middle one is a girl of color, the other two
are white, and they're all smiling and looking to the
right toward the future, which is pretty cool if you

(35:32):
think about I love that. I got one something I
want to play for you real quick, okay, trefoil, all right,
I'm sure I can find one. This a truff foil.
Go find one. Then you'll build a robot. I know you.
You won't be defeated. So there I was looking one

(35:53):
other thing about cookies, real quick. I was looking at
the at like all of the cookies they ever came
out with, and there were not a bunch that I
was said to miss. But I did see two that
escaped my attention that I wish I had had eaten
one We're Apple Cinnamons, it was out from two thousand one.
Done that sound good? And another one We're Savannah Smiles,

(36:15):
which I just missed because I wasn't paying attention. But
they are lemon coolers that were out from two thousand
twelve to two thousand nineteen. So if we haven't any
clout with the Girl Scouts whatsoever after this episode, I
want to put in a personal request to bring back
Apple Cinnamons and bring back Savannah Smiles. And what if
they just sent you a VHS copy of the movie

(36:36):
Savannah Smiles from nineteen eighties something I'd be okay ish
with it. Uh. Here's the kind of neat thing about
the Girl Scout Cookie Drive is they can earn um badges,
uh the Cookie connection badges, cookie biz badges, uh, dough charms.
They can earn things, but it's not by selling the most,

(36:59):
which is what happens at Farm of Brocamp. Like the
biggest markup in the most sales is what gets you
your badges there. It is for setting a goal and
accomplishing that goal, whatever it is. It could be for
making a really great advertisement or poster or maybe putting
an advertisement in the local paper. Uh, it could be

(37:19):
writing a story about the sale and getting that published
or something. There are all kinds of cool ways to
earn those cookie badges that don't and I don't think
any of them include well, we sold the most, Uh right, No,
it's it's it's the local press that that hops on
who sold the most or you know, but the girls

(37:39):
got themselves. They're like, yes, you go out and sell it.
But the point is setting goals, reaching goals, learning, Like
they have a digital like it's basically like Salesforce, but
for Girl Scout cookies called Digital Cookie, and these little
girls are learning how to like run that kind of stuff.
It's more of a focus on entrepreneurship than anything else.

(38:00):
And for a long time I was very critical of
Girl Scout cookie drives. I wasn't to the level where
I was like complaining that like the Girl Scouts had
set up on a public sidewalker um that that like
there somebody was selling their kids cookies for hum at
the office. I would never It wasn't to that level
or anything like that, but I thought I was under
the impression that the Girl Scouts of America was basically

(38:23):
selling sending these kids out to basically send all the
money back to the central like group. And that's just yeah,
apparently almost all of it stays with the councils and
that money goes back into the local troops. That it's
it's really like self funding thing. And I didn't really
fully grasp that. And I also didn't realize how inclusive

(38:44):
the Girl Scouts were. But now, I mean, like, I'm
just I'm gonna buy all the cookies all the time.
You thought Queen tag Along just sat on her throne
of money pretty much no, no, no goes to the
council's goes back to the bakeries, um. And then about
twelve to seventeen percent go to the actual individual troops

(39:06):
from the council. And that's why those annual dues are
solo twenty five dollars. Is you know, most families can
swing something like that a year, but they still do
have financial assistance if you can't, which is which is wonderful.
But I mean, just that's off, you know. So the
Girl Scouts, like we said, and again we're not trying
to disparage Boy Scouts, but they have always been more inclusive.

(39:28):
They have always had policies of nondiscrimination from very early on.
And UM, like you said, some of the controversy comes
from people of of certain political persuasion perhaps that think, Um,
the Girl Scouts are too independent and feminists oriented and
they're run by militants and lesbians and this this the

(39:49):
worst things that you could possibly say, uh about like
a really about a really great group like this. UM.
In the seventies they had Betty for dan are old In,
who we've spoken about before, UM, very much a noted feminist.
She sat on the board of directors, which was a
great thing. But of course that didn't a squage any
fears that it was a feminist organization because that was

(40:12):
back when that was a dirty word. UM. Now you know,
and are we in the third wave of feminism? I
honestly don't don't know. I mean, the third waves definitely
come about, but I don't know if we've reached the
fourth or not by now. That Well, we'll do a
show on that at some point and we'll figure out
all the waves. But the Girl Scouts have always been

(40:33):
behind UM supporting legislation relevant to women, stuff like Title nine,
which we've talked about, which is equal funding for female
UM supports activities and stuff like that in colleges, and
it's it's just always encouraged young girls to be independent
and to do their own thing because that's what it

(40:54):
takes to succeed in the world. And I don't think
they tagged that as feminism necessarily, but they just said
these are rate traits to learn so you can be
an an independent woman in America or all over the world.
Because they do have troops all over the world, we
should mention. Yeah, And they're usually like raked over the
coals whenever you know, they they salute or they support UM,

(41:15):
like a feminist leader of feminist activist, often pro choice activists.
They're they're usually one and the same or very often
one and the same UM. And so you know, the
far right will just like go crazy over that and
say the Girl Scouts are like this brainwashing machine for
producing you know, leftist agenda kids, right, and UM, that's

(41:40):
just doesn't seem to be the case whatsoever. I think
really what it is is the the far right seems
to to to think of groups like that, like the
Girl Scouts, as as having some sort of agenda and
not realizing that the groups like the Girl Scouts like
have the values that they have which tend to be
counter all right, because mainstream America doesn't share the same

(42:03):
values as far right, and these are fairly mainstream things
like inclusivity, UM equality, uh, female independence, like those are
pretty mainstream ideas. Uh. And I guess that's all I
have to say about that. And and for those of
you that want to write in, note, Josh is saying
far right, he's not saying all Republicans. It's a big difference.

(42:26):
Thanks for that. But this is uh and was also
basically uh the beginning of and the the the left
jumped all over the Girl Scouts for tweeting out a
congratulations to Amy Comy Barrett for becoming I think the
fifth um woman Supreme Court justice in history. And they

(42:47):
even like put the other women on there. It was
like a Twitter card with all of the women Supreme
Court justices pictures on there. But everybody on the left
jumped all over them. So I think, just like the A. C.
L U, if both sides are mad at you, you're
doing you're you're right, you're doing everything right, then yeah,

(43:09):
the Girl Scouts is a non religiously affiliated UM secular group.
But they do have UM the my Promise in my
Faith pin which uh they say, compliments existing religious kind
of recognitions, allows girls to further strengthen the connection between
their faith and Girl Scouts. And there is the phrase

(43:30):
on my honor, I will try and serve God in
my country. But the official policy now for the g
s USA is that you can swap the word God
out if you want, and you can just say serve
the community, or serve others, or serve humanity, serve my country,
or you can just drop it all together if you want. Again,
in the spirit of inclusivity, you can also it's they
also ruled it's okay to swap out my country for

(43:52):
the socialist agenda, which I mean some people on the
far right were like ce ce a problem with rainwashing machine. Um. Also,
that gold award is did you say that your ey's
friend's daughter is going for that gold award or the silver?
She is working on her silver. I will be surprised
if she doesn't go for the gold. Well, only five

(44:14):
point five percent of Girl Scouts who are eligible even
get that gold to it is very prestigious. Indeed, so
let's hope that she can get there. Yeah, let me.
I want to wrap up with a couple of words
from her. She said that she got to read one
of her essays about going to see Wicket on Broadway
on Broadway, and she said, um, I can now say
that I was literally on Broadway. Ha ha. She said,

(44:36):
I didn't win the competition, but out of all the
girls who submitted their essays, I got in. That trip
will stay with me forever. It is these small moments
that will stay in my mind forever. Girl Scouts will
always stay with you. You make friends and you learn
new things in life. It is so fun and amazing, amazing, amazing. Uh.
And I guess my last thing is I want to

(44:58):
shout out some famous girls Outs. I was listening to
the podcast the other day with Jason Bateman and Shawn
Hayes and Smart lit Arnett SmartLess, and they had Amy Saidarison,
who is one of my favorite humans, and she was
talking about being a Girl Scout, which is no surprise,
so Amy Saidarris is a veteran and by the way,
one great Instagram follow if you don't follow her, um

(45:21):
Sally Ride, Venus Williams, Carrie Fisher, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama,
Taylor Swift, Nancy Reagan, Gloria Steinhum, Lucille Ball, Natalie Merchant,
Martha Stewart, Cheryl Crow, Katie Curic, Laura Bush, the Code
of Fanning, and many, many, many more. Yeah, you and
I saw the same Good Housekeeping slide show. Apparently know

(45:43):
it took so long to get there? Did you say,
Natalie Merchant, she's got to get a shout out? Yeah,
she was in there. I used to be a big
ten Thousand Maniacs fan. How could you not be. I'll
bet they're one of those bands where if you went
back and listen to him now, you'd be like, what,
They're even better than I liked, or then I realized
back then, well I still listen. Okay, Well there's a
little tip for all you girl scouts out there and

(46:03):
boy scouts too. Don't be shy. Start listening to ten
thousand Maniacs and see what you think. Agreed, and thank
you very much to our special guest, Annabella from Troop
in Maryland. I hope we earned you a badge of
some sort for this double or badges, I say badges,
and since I said double, the badges it's time for

(46:25):
listener mail. UH. This is Kiva plug you know, many many,
many years ago. I think we started our team in
two thousand seven. I'm looking now, Yes, it was okay,
oh no, no, two thousand nine, we started a Kiva team.

(46:45):
And for those who don't know, Kiva is a micro
lending website. UM. They are not perfect, but they do
a pretty good job. UM where you can donate very
small amounts of money to UH entrepreneurs and develop nations
UH and all over the world that not even developing
nations exclusively anymore, to help people out give him a

(47:06):
leg up. And it's called micro lending because ideally they
repaid this money and most of the loans do get repaid.
And we started our team many many years ago. And
let me read this email first. Hey, guys, recently decided
to start the catalog from the beginning again and reach
the two thousand nine episode who were the first Americans
where we plugged the Kiva team for the first time.

(47:29):
I thought it would be good enough for Reason to
write in and request that you plugged the team again.
Because it's been a while. There may be a lot
of new listeners who discovered the podcast since since then
and aren't aware of the Kiva team. Uh. And this
is from Lee Rondorf in Minnesota, so I appreciate the nudge,
Lee we Uh. I am very proud to say. This
is amazing, dude. I haven't been to the site in

(47:49):
a while. The stuff you should know. Kiva Team since
its inception has loaned nine point almost nine point three
million dollars uh threety loans almost twelve thousand members and
about thirty loans per member. That is spectacular. That beats
my number. I gotta tell you, it's amazing. And um,

(48:10):
I got the reminder the ad relan. I had about
a hundred bucks in there sitting there in my account.
That's how it works. They'll give you the money back,
it'll be in your account and then you can go
reland that money. And I'm still working off that first
deposit I made many many years ago. That's nice. I've
got to go look at my account and and it's
been a while. I stopped getting those nudge emails because
they really work. Like when they come here, I'm like, oh, yeah,

(48:32):
I need to go relind that. So I gotta go
check it out and also figure out what why I'm
not getting those emails anymore. That's right, So we should
encourage people to look into Kiva. If it's something you
feel like you want to support. You can start with
just a twenty five dollar loan to get your account started.
And uh, let's let's get this thing well over ten
million dollars. And I meant to tell you too. I

(48:54):
refreshed our page a little bit. Oh nice. We had
some terrible old picture of us, like in the video studio. Yeah,
I remember that picture, so I updated that with a
picture of us that we like to use. And I
also just change the name of the team to stuff
you should Know and not stuff you should know from
how stuff works dot com. Oh wow, Chuck, very nice
modernizing stream. Well, if you want to join our Kiva team,

(49:18):
go to kiva dot org slash team slash stuff you
should Know, right, Yeah, and all the does have underscores
between stuff you should know, But you can just go
search teams for stuff you should know and make sure
you do it through our team. So we're all collected together.
It's kind of nice, and we don't discriminate whoever you are.

(49:39):
Were as inclusive as the girl Scouts are, so join
up and if you want to send us an email.
In the meantime, we always like to hear from everybody.
You can send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart
radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

(50:02):
to your favorite shows. H