Record-breaking cookie sales spark controversy
A record was shattered this cookie season. Jennifer Sharpe, 15, of Dearborn, Mich. sold 17,323 boxes of Girl Scout cookies — believed to be the highest individual cookie seller in the organization’s history.
She’s being honored today and had some words of wisdom for future sellers.
Jennifer, a fan of the Thin Mints, used a retail-inspired strategy. She set up shop in the parking lot of Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church in Dearborn. She staffed that booth 3-7 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On Sundays, she sold cookies outside a local auto parts store from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.“When I was young, I knocked on doors,” said Jennifer, in her 10th year of scouting. “Now that I’m older, I get too many rejections face to face. People don’t want to buy from a 15-year-old. They want to buy from a cute little Brownie.”
She knows how to work the sales pitch.
“I know how to get people to buy more,” said Jennifer, a sophomore at Edsel Ford High School . “If they buy two boxes and they hand me a 10, I’d be like, ‘For 50 cents more, you can get three,’ because three boxes are $10.50.” The money Jennifer and her friends from Troop 813 raised will go toward a trip to Europe.But some say the aspiring marketing executive’s victory is far from sweet. Some have accused her of cheating because her mother, Pam, sold cookies when Jennifer was at school. But Coughlin said there are no rules against that.
“Jennifer was the one behind this. She’s the one who set the goal,” Coughlin said. “Parents take order cards to work. To us, it’s the same thing. It’s a different variant of the same thing - adults helping a girl meet her goal. We expect a girl to be involved in every way, pulling the order, sharing what they’re going to do with the proceeds.”
Well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Is it fair for parents to hawk their daughters’ cookies at work? What’s your favorite?
Aisha covered education and breaking news for nearly ten years before joining the Lifestyle staff where she writes a "Dirty Laundry" parenting column. She is the home and family editor and wastes too much time on Facebook and political blogs. 
I have gotten asked to buy girl scout cookies every year since I was old enough to earn my own paycheck (and probably, before that as well). Never once have I gotten asked by an actual girl scout. This girl and her mom probably went overboard, but if they are literally breaking the rules, then (nearly) everyone is breaking the rules.