A Girl Scout troop from an Iowa homeless shelter set a big goal of selling cookies in all 50 states in America.
They have now accomplished that goal.
Troop 64224 operates out of the Micah House, a homeless shelter. The girls there are big fans of the Girl Scouts program.
"I have a couple of them that will stop me in the hallway and say, 'When is the next Girl Scouts?' And we have to talk about how many more sleeps they have until Girl Scouts or how many days, depending on their age," said Kayla Terrillion, a Child Program Specialist at the Micah House.
Troop size varies, and the program runs year-round.
"We are always full, everybody's circumstance is different. So sometimes yeah, it is the change of the economy that brought this family in, but this other family is coming because of domestic violence," said Terrillion.
Terrillion says the Girl Scout program at the shelter began back in 2018.
Last year they sold 1,000 boxes. They hoped to do that again.
"We completely and utterly surpassed it," said Terrillion.
It's not unusual for a Girl Scout troop to have an event for people to come pick up their cookies, but in this case, these sales only account for a small percentage because the troop's popularity exploded online.
More than 26,000 boxes were sold. Most were direct, online sales. As the troop sales started to pick up steam, a new goal was made.
"What if we try and get 50 states sold to. So we started putting it out there that we wanted to get to 50 states," said Terrillion.
The troop shared their story online, and got national attention. They easily hit that goal of all 50 states.
"People see that we are a homeless shelter but we are trying to give as much normalcy as possible to our girls and to our families who are staying with us," said Terrillion.
And while the cookies may be sweet, what's sweeter than giving these girls a chance to bond with friends during a tough time?
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