Girl Scouts Interview GDK 040921

Cody and Erica are joined on the phone by Haleigh McGraw, Communications and Brand Director with the Girl Scouts of Wilderness Road, with details on where to purchase cookies this weekend.

C1 3 cookie program as it relies heavily on cookie sales to provide, of course, programming and also experiences to members throughout the year.

Cody: joining us by phone with details on where to purchase your cookies this weekend is haleigh mcgraw.

Communications and brand director.

Welcome haleigh.

It's wonderful to chat with you.

Haleigh mcgraw: yes guys.

Thanks for having me this morning.

I'm glad to be here.

Cody: we know about cookies, obviously.

I mean, we look forward to it every year.

Speaker 1: love them.

Cody: but explain what this program does for the girl scouts.

Haleigh mcgraw: yes.

The cookie program is a financial literacy program that our girls use to gain skills like business skills, money management, people skills, customer service skills.

It's a very robust program where they're doing more than just earning money.

Speaker 1: absolutely.

And i want to talk about this cookie, i guess problem for you guys.

I mean, you have this huge surplus of all of these boxes.

What's been the roadblock as a factor in all of that?

Haleigh mcgraw: sure.

Now that we're nearing the end we've been able to offload some of that surplus, but we still need your help.

As last year we were hit near the end of the sale with the pandemic and had to pivot, this year we were lucky that we were able to prepare for the pandemic level sales.

However, it still did impact our availability to be in front of our customers out in front of stores and booths.

We can't go door to door any longer, so that impacted the way that we were proceeding.

And then this year, as you know, central kentucky, eastern kentucky, and southern kentucky really had a wave of winter weather followed by that severe flooding that really hit our girls right when they were getting out there in front of the public.

We did this extension to allow them to hopefully reach those goals, especially in eastern kentucky where those girls are still experiencing some impacts.

Speaker 1: how many cookies are we talking about, haleigh?

Haleigh mcgraw: a few weeks ago when we should have been wrapping up, the end of march, we were nearly 30,000 boxes overstock.

Cody: wow.

Haleigh mcgraw: we still have several thousand to go.

Speaker 1: okay.

Haleigh mcgraw: we've made a good chunk out of that, but a few thousand here, boxes of cookies left in kentucky to pick up, and with that too we will still have them available when you visit us at gskentucky.org.

All you have to do is put in your zip code.

It'll show you where girls have booths ready this weekend, and where troops are available to do direct ship orders to your door.

Cody: haleigh, the interesting thing to me is, we know people want the cookies.

Speaker 1: yes.

Cody: we know there's no lack of that, but with people being working from home or the girls not being able to go, just people not being aware that they can get them online i think has been a big factor as well.

Don't you?

Haleigh mcgraw: that's a great point, cody.

I will tell you that you're absolutely right.

Lack of customer interest was not something that we experienced this year, but you don't have a girl scout knock on your door or ring your doorbell anymore.

We have to remain safe.

We did spend a good portion of this year prior to our cookie sale building up our digital cookie system.

This is a system that we've used for years, but we really wanted to make it robust, so the taking digital payments was easier, taking a shipment order is easier, and requesting door drops is much easier so that we can remain distanced, safe, and still reaching those goals.

Speaker 1: and haleigh, tell us more about that deadline and where people can get those cookies.

Haleigh mcgraw: sure.

This sunday, april 11th, this is the last day that you can pick up a box.

Visit us at gskentucky.org.

The banner at the top, all you have to do is type in your zip code and it'll show you a troop near you.

Speaker 1: nice and easy.

Cody: yeah.

Nice and easy.

That's the way we like it.

Thank you so much as always, and we look forward to seeing you in studio at some point in the future.

Haleigh mcgraw: oh, absolutely.

Soon.

I promise.

Speaker 1: and those cookies.

Cody: yeah, that too.

Haleigh mcgraw: yep.

Speaker 1: thanks, haleigh.

Haleigh mcgraw: thanks guys.

Speaker 1: stick around we've got more good day kentucky right after this.