Bright green vests, sweet, adorable smiles, and colorful boxes filled with delicious cookies – girl scout season is back in full swing! Located outside of local grocery stores, shopping malls, various schools, and even you’re front door, are the identifiable members of Girl Scouts of the USA. Every year beginning roughly, the middle of February through March, the Girl Scout of the USA sell a variety of rich flavors of cookies to choose from.

During the 2015 season, the troops will be selling a total of twelve different cookies, the flavors include; Thin Mints – a chocolate wafer cookie with a hint of peppermint, Caramel DeLites (a.k.a. Samoas) – a simple, vanilla cookie covered in caramel with chocolate drizzle and coconut flakes, Peanut Butter Patties (a.k.a. Tagalongs) – a vanilla cookie with peanut butter layers covered in decadent chocolate, Shortbread (a.k.a. Trefoils) – a traditional, plain vanilla cookie, Do-si-dos (a.k.a. Peanut Butter Sandwich) – an oatmeal cookie sandwiched with peanut butter in between cookie layers, Cranberry Citrus Crisps – a whole grain cookie made with Cranberry pieces and infused with a citrus flavoring, Lemonades – a shortbread cookie with a zesty, lemon frosting, Rah-Rah Raisins – a healthier choice of an oatmeal cookie with raisins and greek yogurt chunks, Savannah Smiles – lemon, wedge cookies covered in powdered sugar, Thanks-A-Lot – a shortbread cookie with a chocolate covering on the bottom and an imprinted thank you message in one of five different languages, Toffee-Tastic – a buttery cookie with mixed in crunchy pieces of toffee, and lastly, Trios – a gluten-free friendly, peanut butter oatmeal cookie with chocolate chips. With a vast variety of differing flavors to choose from, it’s no wonder people go on a cookie splurge and stock up for the remainder of the year.

According to U.S. News, during a study conducted in 2011-2012, the Girl Scouts of the USA, on average, generate around $800 million cookie-sales over the course of their six to eight week season, selling cookies for around four to five dollars per box depending on the location of sales. The top seller of the twelve flavors is; Thin Mints by 25%, followed by Caramel DeLites (Samoas) with 19%, and Peanut Butter Patties (Tagalongs) with 13% higher sales. Making purchases from the local Girl Scouts troops has many positives to benefit from other than the scrumptious cookies you get to take home! Approximately seventy-percent of the proceeds remain in the area of the local Girl Scouts troops and within that percentage, an estimated fifteen-percent directly benefits the troop from which the purchase was made. The troops utilize the money earned from cookie sales to engage in programmatic outings or to purchase materials from a Take Action/Service Project offered to benefit their community.

The organization, founded in 1912 by Juliette Gordon Low with collaborations from the father of Scouting, Robert Baden Powell, strives to imprint life-long values including; honesty, fairness, courage, compassion, character, sisterhood, confidence, and citizenship all through organized activities, to their members of just under three million youth and and just under nine-hundred thousand adults.

Before Girl Scout cookie season comes to a close, make sure to purchase even just a single box of cookies that will have more potential benefits than any other general cookies you can find at your local grocery store. And if you’re a cookie fanatic then stock up, the cookies are freezable and just as tasty later on!