More than $40,000 can buy you a brand new car, and that’s exactly where one suburban Girl Scout went to find her best sales pitch – to a car salesman.
“You don’t ask if they want to buy … you ask people how many they want to buy,” 9-year-old Marissa Dambra told the Daily Herald. Those words of wisdom bestowed upon her ultimately helped her peddle more than 2,500 boxes of cookies.
Marissa, of Oakhill Elementary School in Streamwood, and three other suburban girls are the top cookie sellers for the Girl Scouts of Illinois this year, an accomplishment that did not come easy.
Along with Marissa, third-graders Kayla Mele of Heritage Elementary School in Streamwood, Guinevere Larson of Oakhill Elementary School in Streamwood and sixth-grader Amber Arnold of St. Luke's Lutheran School in Montgomery beat out more than 11,000 other girl scouts to sell more than 2,500 boxes of cookies each this season. At $4 a box, they raked in more than $40,000 for the Girl Scouts.
Their goal? To unlock a four-day trip to Disney World.
Amber Arnold, 12, of Aurora told the Chicago Tribune she was planning to do “whatever it takes” to win that Disney vacation. That included sitting outside in the cold after school on the weekdays and 11-hour days of cookie selling on Saturdays and Sundays.
Marissa echoed Amber’s sentiment that the dream of Disney was the driving force behind each box of Tagalongs, Thin Mints or Samoas sold.
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Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois spokeswoman Cindy Kocol told the publication this is the first year they’ve offered the Disney incentive, and it paid off.
The average Girl Scout only sells about 130 boxes, the Tribune reported.
The girls who went above and beyond will also get a luxurious limo ride and lunch with Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois CEO Fiona Cummings, and other prizes including iPads, season passes to Six Flags Great America, T-shirts, bags, stuffed toys, pencils and journals for meeting various levels of sales, according to the Daily Herald.
