Paparazzi

I’d rather get an email, text or post than door to door. I never answer our door anymore. There are cookies, popcorn, local discount card, just give us cash, mulch and I kid you not there used to be mattress sales.

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine in a large American city sends his kid to public school, but the PTA at that school (in a very rich neighborhood) does a huge amount of fundraising to where the quality of the school is close to private. Several times a year he posts on his FB aggressively about things like popcorn sales that his tween is supposedly doing to raise money for the school--last time it was for a very expensive trip. He will say his daughter needs to sell x amount more to be in "first place" or whatever, and the amount of popcorn sales was over 3k last time. Ridiculous.

I used to fall for this stuff so hard. Colleagues would be like "we're raising money for the public school" and I'd go ahead and give money/buy the popcorn/whatever because I do care about supporting public schools.

Then I actually had a kid and learned more about public schools in our city and realized I'd been giving a ton of money to all the rich schools in the city for a bunch of extras that mostly only helped wealthy kids whose parents could afford those extras anyway. I felt like a chump.

Now I actually pay attention. I contribute when it's a title one school with a high at risk population, or if the fundraiser is going directly to fund an academic or enrichment activity I really support. But I don't just randomly participate in fundraisers for public schools where the average family has twice my HHI. It's ridiculous how much money I gave to those schools over the year. Oh well, hope the kids got something out of it I guess.

A friend of mine in a large American city sends his kid to public school, but the PTA at that school (in a very rich neighborhood) does a huge amount of fundraising to where the quality of the school is close to private. Several times a year he posts on his FB aggressively about things like popcorn sales that his tween is supposedly doing to raise money for the school--last time it was for a very expensive trip. He will say his daughter needs to sell x amount more to be in "first place" or whatever, and the amount of popcorn sales was over 3k last time. Ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:It teaches your kids to leverage their network!

j/k, but also - a post on facebook is not really an assault. Just ignore it and move on. The kid I buy from is 10 or 11 and sets up her own website (not from scratch, but you can tell she's had input and she's talked about learning how to customize it) and sends it in an email to everyone who's bought from her in the past, in addition to her parents posting it on their facebook walls. I'm not sure why that's a problem. And for what it's worth this isn't really a "kids these days" issue. When I was in GS we all went door to door, but the kids that always sold the most had parents that took the order form to work and passed it around, bonus points if their parent was the boss and people felt pressure to buy at least one box - plus ca change.

I have a friend who makes it her livelihood in the winter, posting at least a dozen times a month, then brags about allllll the boxes "her daughter" sold.

FWIW - we do most of our sales at booths. I post on social just once so that anyone far away can order if they want to. If you get an email, it's probably because GS is sending it - not the scout's parents. This is totally something you can just let go. But or don't buy.

When I was a leader and my DD was a GS, I encouraged the girls to sell their own cookies. They role played for practice. My DD went door to door with me supervising but mostly stuck to houses she knew. The fact is hardly anybody answered the door and it was very discouraging. She also called up relatives herself and sold over the phone. It has been years since I’ve had a girl show up at my door or call me and I do order from the websites. I assume that the girls are setting them up themselves and today they get in-person experience at booth sales. I think the least pressure to buy is when a parent posts on social media or you receive an email. You don’t have to say no to a sweet face. If you don’t want to buy, hit delete on the email or scroll on. With that said, I have never liked the parent selling in the office because the girl has zero involvement. The 2 top earners in my troop sold tons that way.

They taste awful. I'm not eating that crap just to please someone else, and I'm not wasting my money either.

Anonymous wrote:Every girl in our neighborhood is a girl scout, including our daughter. Neighbors are getting annoyed.

Neighbors can either buy one box each from the first few girls that come by, or just say no thank you. Being able to take a no is also something that girls learn through cookie sales. If you don't want them, don't buy them.

Every girl in our neighborhood is a girl scout, including our daughter. Neighbors are getting annoyed.

I'm a Girl Scout leader and strongly encourage my girls to do at least some door to door sales. I tell them it's a troop goal that everyone knocks on one door, but that it's okay if their parents call ahead of time so they know you're coming. I also make it a troop activity for each girl to write a general thank you note, so they can attach it to each in-person delivery order.

All of that to say, it's really up to the parents whether they want to encourage Larla to go knocking on doors. If mom and dad choose to blast their friends instead of walking around with their girl, then that's better than nothing. I very strongly encourage those families to participate in at least a few cookie booths, so the girl gets some experience. Ultimately cookie sales are both learning opportunities for the girls, but also the main fundraiser for the troop. Without cookie sales, we don't have the money for camping, field trips, badges, etc. The social media blasts don't give the girl the learning experience, but at least we meet our fundraising goals.

Anonymous wrote:It teaches your kids to leverage their network!

j/k, but also - a post on facebook is not really an assault. Just ignore it and move on. The kid I buy from is 10 or 11 and sets up her own website (not from scratch, but you can tell she's had input and she's talked about learning how to customize it) and sends it in an email to everyone who's bought from her in the past, in addition to her parents posting it on their facebook walls. I'm not sure why that's a problem. And for what it's worth this isn't really a "kids these days" issue. When I was in GS we all went door to door, but the kids that always sold the most had parents that took the order form to work and passed it around, bonus points if their parent was the boss and people felt pressure to buy at least one box - plus ca change.

Agree with all of this.

Personally I find door-to-door sales more “guilting” than an email or social media post that I can easily ignore.

It teaches your kids to leverage their network!

j/k, but also - a post on facebook is not really an assault. Just ignore it and move on. The kid I buy from is 10 or 11 and sets up her own website (not from scratch, but you can tell she's had input and she's talked about learning how to customize it) and sends it in an email to everyone who's bought from her in the past, in addition to her parents posting it on their facebook walls. I'm not sure why that's a problem. And for what it's worth this isn't really a "kids these days" issue. When I was in GS we all went door to door, but the kids that always sold the most had parents that took the order form to work and passed it around, bonus points if their parent was the boss and people felt pressure to buy at least one box - plus ca change.

What does it teach your child if most of their boxes are sold through your own social media push? Guilting colleagues and friends into buying multiple highly processed cookies that last only 6 months. What happened to door-to-door sales? Kudos to the parents who encourage old school ways of selling the cookies and don't post links and sales on their Facebook pages. "Look how many boxes Larla sold!" but it was really just her mother selling them to her friends!