A toast to Chicago’s Girl Scouts — with a Thin Mint — for prevailing during the pandemic

Mali, with the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, featured during a virtual program on global cooking. She was one of two girls who recently had a chance to interview Michelle Obama on a special girl-led discussion about “Becoming Me.” | Provided

Dozens walked back into summer camps last week, a therapeutic place to be after an emotionally tough year of pandemic social distancing.

It’s been a bad year for Girl Scout cookies nationwide, but not here in Chicago.

Instead of selling out most of their famous cookies within the first few months of the year, the Girl Scouts of the USA say about 15 million boxes are still sitting in bakery warehouses. It’s an excess inventory worth roughly $60 million. Before the pandemic hit, the Girl Scouts were selling about 200 million boxes a year, worth nearly $800 million.

The Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, however, found ways to prevail. They pushed digital sales like never before, increasing them by 61%, and they carried on with more limited person-to-person sales, following all the pandemic safety practices.

Our local Girl Scouts sold more boxes of cookies per girl than they have in years, despite fewer Girl Scouts participating.

Now the girls are enjoying the fruits of their labor. Dozens walked back into summer camps last week, a therapeutic place to be after an emotionally tough year of pandemic social distancing.

“We’re ready to embrace how we can help the girls and get them ready to be in a positive mental and emotional state, so they can be ready to go back to school in the fall,” Julie Somogyi, a spokesperson for the local Girl Scouts, told us.

Allow us to toast, with a Thin Mint, the can-do spirit of the Girl Scouts.

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