From left, Bowling Green Girl Scout Troop 1067 Ambassadors Lauren Allen and Torrie Cline and Troop 933 Daisy Maggie Smith, Cadet Nahla Crosser, Daisy Bindi Crosser and Daisy Trooper Leader Jackie Farrell show boxes of Girl Scout cookies they are selling for this year's fundraiser while at the Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana Caveland Service Center on Lehman Avenue on Tuesday, March 2, 2021. In addition to holding booth sales for cookies at area businesses and small businesses until March 21, the Girl Scouts are selling their cookies through the GrubHub app or their Girl Scout’s website and delivering to customers' front doors to accommodate for COVID-19 restrictions. (Grace Ramey/photo@bgdailynews.com)

The time has come for Girl Scouts to sell their famous cookies for their biggest fundraiser of the year.

COVID-19 interrupted last year’s sales, so the girls are finding new ways to raise money this year.

“We had to shut it completely down (in 2020),” said Felicia Bland, membership experience coordinator at the local Girl Scouts office. “In anticipation of still being in COVID, we started thinking of innovative ways to be able to still conduct business and cookie sales, but have our girls be as safe as we possibly can.”

This year, the Girl Scouts will still have booth sales for cookies at area businesses, but there are other ways to purchase cookies.

The Girl Scouts office on Lehman Avenue has been converted into a GrubHub station, Bland said. Girl Scout cookies can now be ordered from the local troop and delivered to customers.

“That’s a new partnership that we have that we’ve not had before,” Bland said. “You can go on your GrubHub app and order cookies that way, and the girls prepare the orders at our office. The driver comes to the office and picks up your order and delivers it to you.”

In addition to GrubHub, people can purchase cookies on the Girl Scouts website to have the cookies shipped and delivered to their home.

It has been a year since the Girl Scouts last sold cookies in public, but COVID-19 still affected the organization between sales.

“It’s just the challenge of having to do things differently,” Bland said. “Some of our troops have met virtually, some of them have met outside in parks or at our camps. Our troops have had to think of different ways to be together and still have the experience of being a Girl Scout in the COVID environment.”

The cookie sales are the organization’s biggest fundraiser of the year, and it is an important part of being a Girl Scout, Bland said.

The cookies offered this year include the new cookie Toast-Yay!, as well as the well-known Thin Mints, Lemon-Ups, Lemonades, Trefoils, Samoas, Tagalongs, Do-si-dos, Toffee-tastic, caramel chocolate chip and Girl Scout S’mores, according to the Girl Scouts website.

Money raised from cookie sales is spent in whatever way the troop or the girl decides to spend it. This year, most girls in the local troops are saving up for a trip to Savannah, Ga., to visit the birthplace of the Girl Scouts, Bland said.

“The important thing is the girls get to decide what they want to do with their money,” Bland said. “It’s a way for them to develop skills, goal-setting, teamwork, business, things like that.”

Cookies will be sold regularly at Greenwood Mall, but to find another booth location, go to the Girl Scouts’ Digital Cookie Finder online and enter the ZIP code. Cookies can be purchased online for shipping and delivery at digitalcookie.girlscouts.org.

The Girl Scouts will be selling cookies through March 21.