Dancing for Sales May Make the Difference

I was never a Girl Scout.  I remember asking about it, but apparently my older sister had wanted to be a Girl Scout, begged to be a Girl Scout, and my parents relented.

Money was very short in my family and neither of my parents had any experience with Girl Scouting.  Apparently a hard sell ensued by both the Girl Scout leader to my parents and by my sister, cherub-faced, blonde-haired and blue-eyed.   Surely they could not let their first child ruined for life by missing out on the Girl Scout experience in our small town of Marietta.

I am not sure what happened, but I get the feeling that after purchases of uniform, uniform accessories, patches, dues, outings, supplying treats for meetings, and etc. my sister lost interest in being a Girl Scout, most likely affirming my parents initial fears.

And so, I was never a Girl Scout.

However, I did become a Girl Scout Leader when my daughter expressed interest in being a Girl Scout, right from the beginning as a Daisy.  Her Preschool teacher had planted the seed, she remembered that she had to be in kindergarten to be one, and in kindergarten we excitedly traveled to her elementary school to the initial Girl Scout troop organization meeting.

Since I had zero experience in scouting, thanks to my big sister being a Girl Scout dropout, I assumed we would go to the meeting, I would sign her up for the troop, and I would be a Girl Scout Mom.

That was not the case.  In fact, there was no troop leader.  If you wanted to have a troop, you had to start the troop.  Mary, our neighbor, and her daughter Lizzie, one of Jennifer's best friends on the street, had also come to the meeting.  We had two smiling, excited desperately want-to-be Daisies.  She looked at me and said, "I can do crafts."  And I, the former teacher turned Mom at that point, looked at her and said, "I can do kids." And the troop and co-leaders were born.

In fact, it was the start of an amazing Girl Scout mother-daughter journey.  Daisies grew into Brownies, who grew into Juniors, who grew into Cadets. We camped, made crafts, baked, and earned hundreds of try-its and badges.  The girls even served as ushers at OSU football games and participated in a halftime show with The Ohio State University Marching Band.  Who would have thought that only about 6 years later, our daughter would be in The Best Damn Band In The Land.

We bridged every level and largely kept the same 10-12 girls in the troop all of those years.  Lifelong friendships for both the parents and the girls.  And yes, we sold cookies, thousands of boxes as a troop, earning money for troop outings and activities, and we thought we were pretty good.  Until today.

photo credit: Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar via photopin cc

Today I read that that Girl Scout Katie Francis of Oklahoma City sold 18,017 cookies.  Whoa!  One girl?  When I first hear the story on TV, I was mentally disqualifying Katie as someone who used social media or the internet to sell.

Nope.  According to the paper, Katie canvasses neighborhoods pulling cookies through snow-covered streets and "breaks into song and dance if necessary."

So that's the key.  Dancing and singing to sell cookies-- who would have thought it?  Katie broke the old 30-year record for cookies of 18,000 and has a goal of selling 20,000 boxes by the end of March.

I couldn't help but think how many moves does Katie know.  I mean-- she is only 11-years-old.  And so, I wanted to send her, or anyone else out to break the national cookie-selling record a link to the best-ever dance video.  The Evolution of Dance is sure to provide enough moves to anyone, whether you are selling Girl Scout cookies or anything else.  So put your dancing shoes on and start selling.