6/15/2020 10:51:00 AM Girl Scout cookies are sweet for Meals on Wheels
Joey Manning, a member of Stewartville Girl Scout Troop 44038, foreground, is one of five troop members and graduating seniors with the Stewartville High School class of 2020 who donated unsold Girl Scout cookies to Family Service Rochester’s Meals on Wheels program. Standing socially distant behind Joey are Tonja Ziemann, senior independence program assistant for Family Service Rochester, which organizes the Meals on Wheels program, at right; and Ron Randall, an Americorps member who volunteers for Family Service Rochester.
For nine consecutive years, the girls in Stewartville's Troop 44038 raised money by selling their hugely popular Girl Scout cookies. Ashley Buckingham, Brittany Engel, Joey Manning, Maya Ramp and Kaileigh Weber all made time to sell their cookies at booths, in school and on their own. Proceeds from the cookie sales paid for two dog-sled excursions, a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area this past February, and the girls' attendance at a number of camps. But when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit southeastern Minnesota in March, Troop 44038 was left with 74 boxes of unsold cookies. "We were well on our way to a successful cookie season when the pandemic shut down all our sales opportunities, and we still had unsold cookies on hand," said Kendra Weber, troop leader. Recognizing that Girl Scouts of River Valleys had developed a way for troops to donate unsold, leftover cookies, Troop 44038 discussed where they'd like their unsold 74 boxes to go. It didn't take long for the girls to donate their cookies to Family Service Rochester's Meals on Wheels program... For more on this story pick up your copy of the June 16 Stewartville STAR.
