Whitefish scout one of top cookie sellers in state

Girl Scout Ashlyn Gardner is already a pretty good salesperson.

The 10-year-old Whitefish Scout sold 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies this year in her first year as a Scout. She placed 78 in the top 100 overall cookie entrepreneurs in the state.

She did a lot of door-to-door sales walking and also with her fellow troop members in Troop 3363.

“There was a lot of people I had never met,” she said.

Ashlyn spent six weeks selling and delivering cookies along with the help of her family. Even when school was canceled in February she put her coat and boots on to knock on doors and sell cookies.

“It was really wet,” she said. “The snow was up to my knee.”

Ashlyn’s goal was to sell 1,000 boxes so she could earn a trip to the Timbercrest Camp in Deer Lodge. She is headed there this summer for the GoPro Adventures camp where she will get to experience rafting, climbing, hiking, fishing and swimming while wearing a GoPro camera and later campers create a film documenting the fun.

“There’s hiking and fires and we get to learn how to start a fire,” she said. “I’ve never been to camp.”

Ashlyn has already earned several merit badges and when it came time at school to research someone for a project she chose Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts.

“There’s a lot of fun activities and real adventure,” she said. “I liked ice skating and the scavenger hunt.”

Her favorite cookie? Thin Mints. And she’s says that’s the cookie she sold the most of too.

The most ordered Girl Scout cookie varieties for 2017 within Montana and Wyoming were Thin Mints with a 28 percent share and Samoas at 26 percent, according to the Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming.

A Great Falls Girl Scout sold 3,353 boxes to be the overall top seller in the state this year.