Regina Girl Guides reflect on traditional sale of cookies after almost 100 years

Girl Guides in Regina have been selling cookies for nearly 100-years as a vital fundraiser that has changed with the times. Sierra D’Souza Butts has the story.

Regina Girl Guides started its tradition of selling cookies door to door almost a century ago.

The tradition first started in the city’s North Central community when a group of Regina girls wanted to raise money to attend camp at Last Mountain Lake.

“That camp required a train ride. That train ride cost money,” said Megan Clake, provincial commissioner for Saskatchewan Girl Guides.

“The leader decided that she was going to bake cookies. They baked sugar cookies, packaged them 12 to a paper bag and went door to door to their friends and family [houses] and sold them. They were able to go to camp.”

That same recipe was used to sell boxes of cookies beyond the city and outside of Saskatchewan, she added.

“Those original paper bags of cookies were $0.10 a bag, and that was enough to make a profit in 1927,” Clake said. “By 1929, cookies were being sold pretty much across the country. The very first Girl Guides cookies that were packaged and sold for the whole country had lots of fruits and nuts in them.”

Although the fundraiser started in 1927, the organization was founded in 1910.

The money raised from the cookie sales helps cover supplies, program costs, supports local activities, trips and more.

Clake’s daughter, Alayna, said she has become less shy since joining the group 10 years ago.

“The Girl Guide program has helped me like come out of my shell more,” the 15-year-old said. “I started talking to more people, I kind of have to when I go door to door because you can’t just stand at the door and say nothing. You have to talk to people and interact with people.”

She initially joined the group because of her mother. Since then, Alayna said she has learned how dependent the program is on volunteers to continue to stay afloat.

“Volunteers are so important for Girl Guides because they just help with everything. Like my mom, for example, does literally everything. She’s helped us make craft kits. “[My mom’s] helped us sell cookies. She’s made posts on Facebook so we could sell more cookies,” Alayna said.

“Without volunteers Girl Guides wouldn’t exist.”

In addition to volunteers, selling cookies is one of the major fundraisers that helps the group thrive, Clake added.

“Last summer we took 19 teenagers to British Columbia for 12 days, and for some of those kids that was the first time they left Saskatchewan,” she said.

“Cookies were a big part of our fundraising for that … They got to go surfing in the Pacific Ocean. That’s not a very typical Saskatchewan activity and so cookies help make those things happen.”