This is an opinion column

It’s a rite of spring. The Girl Scouts are selling their cookies all over town. Instead of daffodils blooming everywhere, cardboard tables are popping up in parking lots and sidewalks. The old standbys are there—Tagalogs, Thin Mints, Samoas, and a new one—Raspberry Rally.

Last week, I was hijacked by some nine-year-old Scouts outside of my neighborhood grocery store. They were schooled in good manners and sales pitch, as in, “Ma’am, would you like to buy some cookies and help a local Girl Scout troop at the same time?”

Yes, I would. And I did.

I’ve always admired the Girl Scouts. The world tells girls a lie, but the Scouts tell them the truth. Fashion magazines and tv ads scream “Be sexy! Be skinny! Flirt your way to the corner office.” The Scouts counter with: “Be smart! Work hard! Flirt if you want to, but get an M.B.A. on the way.”

Girls are also taught to be courageous and strong and to respect themselves and others.

Standing in front of the cardboard table filled with cookies, scouts practice marketing, product placement, customer relations, and consumer engagement.

And right on the box of Thin Mints, which I ate in short order, I learned that the Girl Scout Cookie Program is the largest girl-led entrepreneurial program in the world and that girls learn five essential skills: goal-setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics.

The program is a win-win for the community. All the proceeds stay local. But these are not the only reasons I like the Girl Scouts.

They rescued me when my family moved from Ohio back to Alabama and I had no friends, a twangy accent that marked me as different, and the loneliness that comes from being the new kid at school. Sixth grade cliques had already formed. I wasn’t in one. A Girl Scout leader at my church swept me into hers. She taught me how to cook over an open fire and how to cut a path through the woods, skills I don’t use now, but ones that helped me fit in back then.

History has a way of repeating itself. The Girl Scouts rescued my daughter, too, after our family move meant that she was snatched out of her fourth grade class in North Carolina and plopped down in Alabama, a place she had visited only to see relatives.

Though the neighborhood Girl Scout troop was more than full, the leader made room for just one more girl, my girl. I bought tons of Girl Scout cookies in gratitude. The troop went to Camp Trico on Lake Guntersville. It rained the whole weekend but nobody minded.

The times change and Girl Scouts, like the rest of us, face new challenges. Theirs seem daunting: Covid, bullying, school-shootings, climate change. But they have a saying for all of that. The Girl Scout motto hasn’t changed since 1947. It’s “Be prepared.”

Huntsville resident Beth Thames is a freelance writer, contributor to WLRH and published author. You can contact her at [email protected]