Cookie Dough Fundraiser

Can you believe it is almost Girl Scout cookie time?

Have you ever wondered how selling cookies makes a difference in a girl’s life and what do girls in the Alexandria area do with their “cookie dough” or troop cookie profits?

By participating in cookie activities, girls learn to plan, build teams, speak up, make decisions, solve problems and manage resources. Over time, the skills girls gain set them on a path to be leaders, in their own lives and in their communities.

Eight Point Plan for success:

1. Plan.

2. Set goals.

3. Speak up.

4. Make decisions.

5. Solve problems.

6. Manage resources.

7. Take action.

8. Make a difference.

Many successful business women today say they got their start selling Girl Scout cookies. During cookie activities, girls are members of a team working toward a common goal, with each girl striving to do her best.

At the troop level, the girls decide how to spend the money they’ve earned. Examples include special trips to museums, exhibitions and local events, overnight stays at camp and community service projects.

In the Alexandria area, there are more than 160 Girl Scouts ranging from kindergarten through 12th grade.

Daisy (grades K-1) and Brownie (grades 2-3) Girl Scouts begin to learn how to make the world a better place. Girls become involved in their community by touring local businesses and for community service they travel to area senior living homes to sing and enjoy activities with seniors.

Girls at this age are trying new activities, learning social skills and exploring the world around them.

When girls are in 4-5th grades they are Junior Girl Scouts. Last year, a Junior Troop achieved their Bronze Award by providing community service and used their troop profits to make a difference.

The troop provided several activities at the local WINGS shelter and impacted the lives of children who were in transition from their homes. This same troop is now planning an exploration trip to Chicago in 2010.

Girls who are Cadettes (grades 6-8), Seniors (grades 9-10) and Ambassadors (grades 11-12) have the opportunity to achieve their Silver or Gold Leadership Awards.

Through cookie sales girls have created sensory boxes for local community members and schools. Another troop provided a reading tutoring program for area youth.

Also, three Cadette Girl Scouts sold cookies and fundraised to travel to England on a Girl Scout Council international trip last summer.

For many girls this may be a once-in-a-lifetime trip and for others this opportunity just opens the door to a lifetime of travel.

For more information about Girl Scouts, contact Linda Bear, Girl Scouts of Minnesota and Wisconsin Lakes and Pines membership services manager, at (320) 759-1196 or lbear@gslakesandpines.org.

Cookie information

Cookie Go Day is January 15, with customer delivery scheduled for March 5-14. Cost per box is $3.50. Flavors include Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Sandwich, Shortbread, Caramel deLites, Peanut Butter Patties, Lemonades, Thanks-A-Lot and Daisy Go Rounds.

SILVERDALE —

Members of the Eagles Marching Band of Klahowya Secondary School will take their music on the road this winter break as they perform at the 31st annual Pacific Life Holiday Bowl in San Diego.

The Eagles perform the morning of Dec. 30 in the Port of San Diego Big Bay Balloon Parade and then again that night during the halftime show of the game between the Pac 10’s University of Arizona and the Big 12’s University of Nebraska. The game will be aired live on ESPN. Kickoff is at 5 p.m. The parade will be aired later, at 9 a.m. New Year’s Day on USA Network.

This is the first “big trip” ever for the Klahowya band, which also participates regionally in field show competitions.

The kids “are very excited. This is a good experience for them,” said Jeff McBirnie, Klahowya’s band director. “It has continued the marching band experience from the fall to now so it’s been a little draining, but they are revved up.”

Fifty-nine band members will fly to San Diego after Christmas. The band will spend five days and four nights in San Diego, participating in bowl activities and doing some sightseeing.

Freshman drummer Bethany Sheridan said she is most excited about spending time with the rest of the band. Sophomore drummer Jennifer Seal said she’s not nervous about marching in the parade or at the halftime show. The Marching Eagles have put in hundreds of hours of practice since August.

“I’m not worried, we know the show,” she said.

In the parade, the Eagles will perform “Soul Man,” written by Isaac Hayes but popularized in the movie “The Blues Brothers,” and “Back in Black” by AC/DC. During the halftime show, the Marching Eagles and about 20 other bands, will perform a mix of classic 1980s love songs, including “Love Shack” by the B-52s and “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News.

Band members will also get the chance to visit Sea World, Old Town San Diego, the San Diego Zoo, a science museum and the beach.

The trip will cost $1,325 for each student; band boosters and members held a variety of fundraisers to defray the expense, including a spaghetti feed, a cookie dough sale, a fireworks stand, an auction and the raffling off a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Read more: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/dec/22/klahowya-band-to-spend-part-of-holidays-at-the/

“It’s been a great musical ride,” says George Husaruk, Baechtel Grove Middle School band director since 1998. More than 90 students of the 350 attending Baechtel Grove are enrolled in band this year. That’s about a three-fold increase over the past six years Husaruk notes.

“We have run out of physical space to enroll any more students into sixth grade beginning band,” he says. “I am so thrilled,”

Students, parents and administration support the arts, he adds. “Parents love to volunteer during the annual cookie dough fundraiser, which brought in just over $5,000 this year to the band program.” Funds will be used to purchase new instruments, sheet music, reeds and other supplies; repair instruments; travel to a music festival and to local performances.

Today, December 16, the seventh-grade band will travel to Brookside Elementary School to perform for two assemblies. On Thursday, the award-winning eighth-graders will perform a special free program for the public at the Willits Community Center between noon and 1 p.m.

“Hopefully this is the first of what will become an annual event during the holiday season,” Husaruk says.

A cookie dough fundraiser is popular with many fundraising groups:

• Everybody eats cookies.
• It’s offered in lots of delicious flavors.
• Sales prices are reasonable.
• There’s low risk to the group with a presale fundraiser.
• Easy to sell.
• Highly profitable fundraiser.

This booklet is designed to get you acquainted with cookie dough fundraising if you haven’t done it before. If you are already doing a cookie dough fundraiser this booklet will help you discover the latest offerings, ideas, tips, and hints in making your cookie dough fundraising even more successful.

Overview of a Cookie Dough Fundraiser

Cookie dough is sold to parents, relatives, friends, supporters, and the general public by way of an order form supplied by a fundraising supplier. Orders are taken over roughly a two week period for specific dough flavors. At the end of the sale period order forms are tallied and the cookie dough is ordered. About two weeks later your cookie dough is delivered and you distribute the dough to your buyers. The dough can be refrigerated for weeks and frozen for months (exact lengths vary with each supplier).

All cookie dough suppliers offer frozen dough in several different flavors. Tub sizes and price points vary among suppliers. Some fundraising distributors offer more than one manufacturer, brand, brochure, or program. You may also find cookie dough included in a brochure along with snack items, cheesecakes, pretzels, drinks, and more.

And there is a new kid on the block- dry mix cookie dough. These dry mix cookie dough products ship and store easy and they are price competitive.

Points to compare among different programs:

1. The items in the catalog – are they suitable for the group you are selling to?
2. Final selling price points.
3. Percentage of profit you will make (based on your projected sales).
4. Any difference in shipping.
5. Prize program availability and cost.

Potential Income for Cookie Dough Fundraising

Generally speaking, you can make between 30-55% profit on a cookie dough sale.

There are some variables that will determine your bottom line. The most important is how many tubs/cartons you will sell. Some suppliers offer free shipping on all orders (with a minimum order amount) and others have a case minimum before free shipping kicks in. Most all suppliers charge less per tub as the size of your order increases (increasing your profit). The best way to figure out what you will make from a sale is to talk to each company and have them help you calculate how much your group will sell and what your profit will be.

Other things will affect your profit so be sure and ask about them:

• Cost of the brochure/order forms
• Cost of the money collection envelopes if you need them
• Availability/cost of computer reports if you need them (sales totals by student and/or teacher)
• Availability/cost of distribution sheets for each seller if you need them
• Availability/cost of prize programs if you need one (can add or deduct 3-5% of the total)
• Do they use pack-to-the-case – rounding each cookie dough flavor up to a full master case (usually 6 tubs)?

Most cookie dough suppliers recommend you have a minimum of 30-50 sellers to make your program successful.

If Jennifer Weber ever dreamed of making an impact in her community, her dream has come true. Her plan was simple, and it has turned into an international success. Weber and her husband, James, are the driving force behind the Cookie Sale to Combat World Hunger project.

“It just keeps growing and growing,” she said. “And that is what’s so neat about it.”
The fundraiser was started in 1997 as a small project for the Sunday school class the couple leads at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, with 12 children baking cookies in the Webers’ kitchen.
This holiday season, more than 40 churches and organizations in Harrisburg, Lancaster, Lebanon and York will team up to sell at least 21,000 pounds of cookies.
Weber said there is no limit to the number of people who can help, and she is trying to find people in other areas of the country who might want to expand the project even more.
“We make sure to invite the groups that have participated before,” she said. “But more groups keep joining each year.” Weber said that she recently received an e-mail from a woman in Georgia inquiring about how to start the project at her church.
“I figured the more people we involve, the more we can feed,” she said.
This year, her team will be selling cookie trays to businesses and organizations. Each tray has two dozen cookies, Hershey chocolates and a thank-you card explaining the program. Each sells for $15, plus shipping costs.
“Basically, every cookie sold feeds three people,” Weber said, “the person eating it and the two people who receive a meal because of its sale.”
Proceeds from the cookie sales are sent to Cross International’s Hunger Relief Program — Cross is a faith-based nonprofit organization — which in turn provides hot meals to villages in Haiti and Jamaica.
The meals often are distributed through school food programs.
“They have project coordinators who oversee the process through to make sure the money gets to the designated areas,” Weber said.
In 2008, the relief program was able to provide 927,000 meals.
“We were just shy of the million mark,” she said.
According to Weber, the program collected close to $100,000 to be able to provide that many meals.
“When we gave them the money, we found out that there was an anonymous donor who matched our proceeds,” Weber said.
“This blessing comes out of nowhere, and we were able to share it with everyone. I don’t look at the money but at the amount of meals, and it feels so great to be able to give that many meals.”
This year’s project preparations are under way. The cookie sale begins Nov. 26, and Weber expects orders will be coming in right until the Dec. 6 deadline.
Weber is hoping to raise enough funds from the cookie sale this year to feed 2 million people.
For information about the Cookie Sale to Combat World Hunger project, call (866) COOKIE-9 or visit www.thecookiesale.com.

Source

Make the cookie dough (up to 1 month in advance). Yes, you can make the dough in advance and still have fresh cookies! You’re going to freeze the rolled-out dough, then cut it and bake it a day or two before the party.

Roll out the dough as soon as you make it. This is when the dough is supple and easy to roll. If you find the dough is super sticky and difficult, your butter is too warm — simply chill the dough for 20 minutes or so before rolling. Roll out portions of the dough (about the size of a large grapefruit) between two sheets of parchment paper, following the directions in the recipe. The dough should be about 1/8-inch thick. Transfer the rolled-out dough (still between parchment) onto a baking sheet. Continue with the other portions, stacking them on the sheet. Wrap the baking sheet in plastic wrap several times and stash in the freezer until baking day.

Buy the bling. Look for colored sprinkles and sanding sugars, silver dragees, colored candies — whatever strikes your fancy.

A Day or Two in Advance

Bake the cookies. Remove the dough from the freezer and let it defrost on the counter for 5 to 10 minutes, until still cold but not frozen hard. Cut out the shapes you want, placing the cookie cutters as close together as possible, then carefully transfer the shapes to parchment-lined baking sheets and bake until light golden brown. Remember to bake similarly sized cookies on the same pan.

Once the cookies have cooled, stack them up according to shapes in zip-top bags to keep the cookies airtight and fresh.

The Day Before

Make the frosting. I like to use meringue powder for the icing and whip up great mounds of it. Then I separate it into bowls and add food coloring. Make more of the most popular colors of the season, and smaller portions of accent colors. You’ll want several piping bags of the most popular colors.

Divide the frosting among disposable piping bags and refrigerate overnight. The disposable bags make for easy cleanup when the party is over. Spoon the frosting into the bags until each one is 2/3 full, then twist the top and secure with a twist tie.

source:http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Recipes/host-holiday-cookie-decorating-party-recipe-included/story?id=9217006