KITCHENER -- Selling Girl Guide cookies is a tradition that involves door-to-door and public sales, but amid physical distancing measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, the process looks much different.
The young saleswomen are adjusting their approach: this year, COVID-19 restrictions mean that sales are going online only.
The famous cookies aren't just for the sweet tooth. Profits help girls pay for trips, guest speakers and learning experiences that help them earn badges.
Packs can no longer attend meetings or sell in person, turning instead to social media as their main source of sales.
But not everyone uses social media or has internet access. The CEO of The Girl Guides Canada says this couldn't have come at a worse time.
"Because it just happened to come at the time that we had all of our cookies baked and they had just left the baker," explains Jill Zelmanovits.
"So that was 3.5 million boxes in total and most of them had arrived either at cookie receivers, who are volunteers that take a whole bunch of the cookies, or they had already been distributed from the cookie receivers to the units."
She says that physical distancing measures were introduced shortly after, suddenly stopping the normal sales of the cookies.
A number of community partners have stepped up to help. The Ontario section of the Girl Guides website lists Canadian Tire, Fresh Co., Sobeys, METRO, Food Basics and Foodland as partners in selling cookies.
Meanwhile, local restaurants like Wooden Boat Food Co. in Kitchener are offering Girl Guide Cookies as an option on their takeout menus.
