Girl Guides ready to sell as over 17K cases of cookies arrive in Calgary

Over 17,000 cases of Girl Guide cookies arrived in Calgary Saturday.

Some fundraisers are more fun than others. Saturday morning, a lot of Calgary girl guides got ready to launch their biggest fundraiser of the year when more than 17,000 cases of cookies arrived in Calgary.

“It’s a fun fundraiser because selling cookies teaches the girls a lot and who doesn’t love a cookie?,” said Megan Belenky, a PR advisor for Girl Guides of Canada.

Funds raised from selling the cookies, which go for six dollars a box, are used to finance a variety of Girl Guide events such as camps, crests, badges and to help with travel costs to events in places like Italy and Switzerland.

It’s part of a longstanding Girl Guide tradition that has been around almost a century, Belenky said.

“This is our main fundraiser,” she said. “This has been around since 1927 and (selling) cookies is how we make majority of our funds.”

But just as significant as the money raised are the life skills girls learn from selling – or not selling -- cookies, Belenky said.

“They learn to be gracious when people strangely don’t want to buy cookies, or they learn how to just communicate and be grateful for all of those people who are out there supporting them.”

Girl guides will be out selling cookies door to door and at local retail locations, with 100 per cent of the proceeds going back to Girl Guides.

With files from CTV’s Tyler Barrow