MOUNT VERNON — Two local girls received top honors for last year’s Girl Scout cookie sales, as the 2008 cookie drive begins.
Kelsey Myers, 10, daughter of Lisa Myers of Mount Vernon and Robert Myers of Howard, has been a Girl Scout for five years and is in fifth grade at Columbia Elementary School. She won first place in the Kokosing Hills Service Unit of Girls Scouts-Heart of Ohio Inc. for selling 1,400 boxes of cookies.
Cheyann Oswalt, 11, of Fredericktown, has also been a Scout for five years; she’s the daughter of Ron and Sherri Oswalt and is homeschooled in fifth grade. She won fifth place in the same division for selling 877 boxes.
Both girls won recognition in 2006 for their sales, as well, and they have plans to win awards for this year. These are Scouts with a sales technique or two up their sleeves, and they explain how they achieve such success.
“My dad has lived in Fredericktown forever, and he knows everybody,” said Cheyann. “And Hometown Video sells my cookies in their store.”
“I go to the bowling alley with my grandpa, and people there buy cookies,” said Kelsey. “It’s kind of hard in some ways because you have to find people. But next year, you want to ask the same people. You don’t have to say much ... you just have to ask. Collecting the money is the hard part, but I like to tell them what the money is going for.”
The girls credit their Mount Vernon News paper delivery routes with broadening their customer base, and both said their newspaper customers are enthusiastic about purchasing cookies.
As competition heats up for the 2008 cookie drive, the salesgirls have the same strategy: To keep doing what they’ve been doing, because their techniques obviously work. But they carefully downplayed their enthusiasm.
“I think I’ll sell more than last year,” speculated Cheyann.
“I’ll probably do pretty well,” was all Kelsey said.
Scouts who receive recognition for high cookie sales received a certificate for “outstanding sales effort.” They are also entered into what the Girl Scout Council calls a 55/500 Club drawing, and Cheyann and Kelsey won outings for themselves and their families. Cheyann won a day at the CoCo Key Water Resort at Cherry Valley Lodge in Newark; Kelsey’s family will be going to Cedar Point next summer. Both were also awarded $150 to spend on Girl Scout merchandise at the service unit’s store in Zanesville.
