To help our cookiebosses increase sales and attract customers, we’re sharing recipes for some delicious dishes made with your favorite Girl Scout Cookies. This week:  Samoas. Try making these or print and share the recipe cards. Samoas Curry Arancini Samoas Fried Shrimp #2016CookieSale #cookies #GirlScoutCookies #Cookingwithcookies #Samoas

[youtube=”http://youtu.be/QnF_pqBYwNw”] Submitted by Maureen McGhee Glenwood Springs My daughter, Sophia, and her friend Maria decided to drum up some business at a recent booth sale by rapping! Customers were cheering, tweeting, videotaping, and buying more cookies. People from inside the store were coming out to see what all the commotion was about and requesting repeat performances. This story was submitted using the Share Your Stories form. You can share your Girl Scout moments too. #cookies #GlenwoodSprings

What did you do for your Gold Award project? I created a project that provides teddy bears and made no-sew blankets to the Castle Rock Fire and Rescue and Castle Rock Police Department. Both organizations will distribute my items during emergency situations in order to offer comfort to people involved in traumatic situations. How did you measure the impact your Gold Award project made on your target audience? Each blanket has a tag which identifies this as a Gold Award project and contains a link to a survey which people who have received my items can complete, if they choose to do so, which asks if they felt comforted by the item.   Contacts at the CRFD and CRPD have agreed to provide feedback from their responders regarding how victims reacted upon receiving a teddy bear and/or blanket. How is your project sustainable? How will your project continue to impact after your involvement? The Meadows Neighborhood Board of Governors has agreed to make Community Comfort an annual event for the Meadows. The BIONIC (Believe It Or Not I Care) group at Castle Rock Middle School has agreed to take over my project. What is your project’s global and/or national connection? My national connection was to research other projects that are taking place throughout the country that are similar to mine. For my global connection, I established contact with a Girl Guide Leader in the United Kingdom who had earned her own Gold Award and knows of groups in the United Kingdom who wish to start a project in similarity to mine in their area. What did you learn about yourself? I learned that I am capable of doing a large project such as a Gold Award project, and that I am able to inspire others to do community-benefiting projects of their own. Additionally, I now know that I cannot do everything by myself, and that it is okay to ask others for assistance. How will earning your Gold Award impact you in the future? I know now the importance of time management and better understand how to best manage my time, a practice I will be using at college. I also will continue to do volunteer service and community-based projects in order to help others as I have through my Gold Award. I am also more confident in my abilities for public speaking and interacting with those in authority or administration, a skill that will greatly benefit me in my future. Why do you feel the Gold Award was an important part of your Girl Scout experience? Ever since I was a Daisy, I have wanted to earn my Gold Award. I believe that through my project, I have a greater understanding about my community and myself, and have learned very useful and important life skills which I may not have earned if I did not complete my Gold Award project. **IMPORTANT NOTE: This blog represents only a small fraction of the hard work, dedication and requirements that go into earning a Girl Scout Gold Award. It is simply a brief summary, which is meant to inspire Girl Scouts to Go Gold in the future. For more information on earning your Gold Award, please email highestawards@gscolorado.org

Outdoor Programs staff current and past! Here is a picture of our current and past Outdoor Programs Volunteer Managers when they met up at the American Camp Association’s national conference this month in Atlanta Georgia. For me, it was really nice to hear about connections between these amazing staff that have helped create so many outdoor programs for our girls! When I talk with people about what I do (and the Outdoor Programs Team), they often ask, “what do you all do during the year when it’s not summer?” The answer is “a lot!” We have a small and mighty Outdoor Programs team: Myself (Betsy “Baja” Smith), I oversee it all! Anna “Sunshine” Danila, the Outdoor Volunteer Programs Manager – she oversees all volunteer led programs, travel for our council, and single day outdoor programs Kim “Ruddy” Petau, Sky High Ranch Camp Director Monica “Obi Joe” Gray, Tomahawk Ranch Director As a team, we do tons of work during the off season, including, but not limited to: Hiring staff and recruiting volunteers for the summer Attending conferences to keep abreast of current trends of youth development Planning logistics for summer camp locations and logistics Not sure about what to do with your Girl Scout or troop outdoors? Check out our summer camp listings for girls and troops! Register now for a summer camp! Reserve a Girl Scouts of Colorado property! Learn more about travel opportunities for Girl Scouts! #AmericanCampAssociation #SkyHighRanch #outdoorprograms #TomahawkRanch #camp

Troop 83334, combined Cadettes, Seniors and Ambassadors from Fort Morgan,  had the dads helping with cookie booths Sunday afternoon. We’re very fortunate and usually have at least one dad at each booth but even we don’t often get all the adult booth helpers be dads that often. The front row of girls are Tamberly (Cadette) Marissa (Senior) and Jamie (Senior) the back row is Mark, Akela (Ambassador) Mario and Mark.  Yes, our dads were Mark, Mark and Mario. Having them there made for interesting conversations! #bestcookiedad #fortmorgan

Girl Scouts of the USA today announced the return of the National Girl Scout Cookie Recipe Contest, sponsored by Taste of Home, the leading multi-platform producer of information on food, cooking, and entertaining for home cooks around the world. From February 26 through March 25, Girl Scout cookie enthusiasts can create and submit their favorite dessert recipes using the iconic cookies as ingredients, for the chance to win prizes ranging from $250 to $500, plus a spotlight feature in Taste of Home magazine. This year’s recipe contest kicks off during National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend (February 26–28), which has become a national holiday for Girl Scout Cookie fans. The weekend honors girls nationwide who positively impact their communities using their cookie earnings, funding “Take Action” projects and educational experiences such as raising awareness about Tourette’s syndrome and building a new storage shed for a school’s drama department. In short, selling cookies enables girls to make a difference that consumers support through their Girl Scout Cookie purchases. National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend also celebrates the essential “5 Skills” each #cookieboss learns through the Girl Scout Cookie Program—goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics—which are invaluable to a girl’s future. “As we kick off National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend, I urge consumers to take pride in what buying a box of cookies really supports. Your purchase enables girls to learn important entrepreneurial skills and, through their earnings, positively impact their world,” said Anna Maria Chávez, CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA. “During this highly anticipated time of year, we are excited to collaborate withTaste of Home yet again, giving consumers a chance to share their fun and delicious cookie creations with the world while supporting girls. Now that’s a winning combination!” The National Girl Scout Cookie Recipe Contest invites chefs of all levels, from home cooks to established professionals, to submit Girl Scout Cookie-inspired entries in one of four categories: (1) cakes, pies, cupcakes, (2) cookies, brownies, bars, (3) pudding, ice cream, gelatin desserts, and (4) candies. The culinary experts with the Taste of Home Test Kitchen, headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, will review and test each recipe, selecting the top 16—four from each category—based on taste, visual appeal, creativity, and crowd appeal. From April 25 to May 1, members of the public will have a chance to vote for their favorite finalist recipes atgirlscouts.org/recipecontest. The recipes with the most votes in each category will win and be announced in May. Last year’s grand prize winner, 15-year-old Girl Scout Stephanie Salmento, created a recipe for Delightful Caramel Bars, a three-step, multilayered treat consisting of both Shortbreads/Trefoils and Caramel deLites/Samoas. The full recipes from all of last year’s 16 finalists—including delectable treats like Thin Mints Popcorn and Touch of Coconut Baklava—are available at girlscouts.org/recipes. “As a Girl Scout alumna, I am so excited to be working with Girl Scouts for the second year in a row,” said Taste of Home Editor-in-Chief Catherine Cassidy. “We know how passionate people are about Girl Scout Cookies—last year’s contest received double the entries in half the amount of time of an average Taste of Home contest—and we can’t wait to see the delicious recipes entrants come up with this year!” To learn more about the Girl Scout Cookie Program and to find Girl Scouts selling cookies near you, visit www.girlscoutcookies.org. To submit your favorite Girl Scout Cookie-inspired dessert recipe and view full contest guidelines, please visit girlscouts.org/recipecontest. #GSUSA #NationalGirlScoutCookieWeekend #TasteofHome

Submitted by Amber Chase Pueblo Pueblo and Southeastern Colorado My Dad, John Chase, is the best Cookie Dad in The Galaxy! He does many things to help my troop get ready for Cookie Season. He makes time to help my friends and I reach our goals. He works very hard to help me reach my personal goals as well! Girl Scout Cookies for 22 girls take up a lot of space! Every year my Dad takes the time to clean our garage so we have a place to put the cookies. Since my mom cannot park her van in the garage he makes sure that her van is cleared of snow so she can still drive it. My Dad also helps pick up Girl Scout Cookies from the Cookie Cupboard. He organizes them in the garage so that it is easy to find the flavor that girls need when they come to pick up their orders. My Dad loves Star Wars! When he was younger he collected movie displays and posters from the movies. When he found out that the theme of our Cookie Booth this year was Star Wars he gave my troop his cool displays to use at our booth! We have cardboard cutouts from all of the Star Wars movies that have been released! I think that it was pretty special of my Dad to give us his displays. My Dad helps me each year to meet my Cookie-selling goals. Each year he helps me set up my Digital Cookie Store. He helps me set my goals, and then he helps me try to meet them. He takes vacation during Cookie Season every year so that while my Mom works as a florist during Valentine’s Day I can still sell Girl Scout Cookies. He also takes Girl Scout Cookies with him everywhere he goes! He sells Cookies at work, at my brother’s Boy Scout Meetings, and at his Chorus rehersals! My Dad does a lot to help with Girl Scout Cookie Sales. I love my Dad a lot! He is an amazing Cookie Dad! This story was submitted using the Share Your Stories form. You can share your Girl Scout moments too. #bestcookiedad #Pueblo #StarWars

In 2016 we are celebrating 100 years of changing the world! For a century, Girl Scouts have earned Girl Scouts’ highest award by taking action to address local, national, and global issues. Gold Award recipient have demonstrated leadership by taking charge and affecting change through measurable and sustainable “Take Action” projects. Girl Scouts of Colorado invites you to help celebrate the Gold Award Centennial by participating in special service opportunities in Denver, Pueblo, and Colorado Springs. Troops in Pueblo are charged with running their own food drives to support the Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado. Click here for more information about running a successful food drive. Donations will be accepted at the Pueblo office during business hours throughout Girl Scout week. Troops in Colorado Springs are invited to volunteer at the Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado on Saturday, March 12th – the Girl Scout Birthday! 30 spots are available at 9:00am and 1:00pm. All volunteers must register ahead of time. Click here for more information about this exciting opportunity. In Denver, everyone is invited to a special birthday celebration at the Denver Public Library on Saturday, March 12th from 10am to 4pm. At the event everyone will have an opportunity to decorate bags and cards to donate to Project Angel Heart, an organization that delivers nutritious meals to improve quality of life, at no cost, for those coping with life-threatening illness. Learn more about this celebration here. Questions? Email highestawards #communityservice #GoldAward #GoldAwardCentennial

Submitted by Melissa Wells Grand Junction Western Slope Troop 10034 has a great cookie dad. Mike W. goes to every cookie booth and helps to set up the booth for selling. He has also helped to do cookie pick up for 2 troops in a moving van. Mike is the parent of a girl scout. He often helps with the troop badge work and helps his wife out of running the troop. Mike helps his wife (troop leader) inventory the cookies, sell the cookies, and encourages the girls to thrive in the girl scout program. This story was submitted using the Share Your Stories form. You can share your Girl Scout moments too. #bestcookiedad #GrandJunction

In the Outdoor Programs team, we do many many things during the year that help prepare us for summer. At Tomahawk and Sky High Ranch, we have small animal programs that are part of our Homesteading Programs. Our camp directors not only work with children in the summer, the often fill in as surrogate animal mamas when needed on their farms. This past month, we’ve had lots of excitement on the Tomahawk Ranch farm – three baby goats were born! Friday, February 5: Ginny, one of our goats, gave birth to Jack and Jill! Obi Joe (camp director Monica Gray) and her staff went to bed on Friday night. Ginny and her babies were settled in and happy and nursing well together. Saturday, February 6: Staff got to the barn and Ginny had passed away. Her uterus twisted and she developed bloat. This happens when goats are born sometimes and it is not easily prevented. The search for baby goat milk begins. Staff had to feed baby goats every two hours. Sunday, February 7: The goats got dressed up and brought to a Super Bowl party to keep them on their feeding schedule. Goat milk nursing at the Super Bowl party! Super bowl goat babies! Tuesday, February 9: Obi Joe found and purchased a goat mama! They rubbed Jack and Jill’s diapers on her to enhance her motherly instincts. April adopted Jack and Jill. The staff at Tomahawk help with nursing since April can’t make enough milk for twins. Wednesday, February 10: Obi Joe was on her way to Byers to pick up a new lamb that was being donated to camp. She got an urgent call from camp staff to turn around. Another female goat, Ladybug, was having a baby. They didn’t know she was pregnant. (Male and female goats are kept separately, but may have had a late night meet up through the fence). New goat born at Tomahawk! Thursday, February 11: Ladybug was having a hard time nursing Faith. Obi Joe researched her breed. Ladybug is a LaMancha and that breed is known to have had lots of inbreeding and human interference so they are known to not nurse well. The Tomahawk staff had to again milk ladybug and feed Faith by hand. Luckily Faith only needed nursing every 4 hours since she was bigger than the twins. Tuesday, February 16: All goats have a mama and all babies are nursing! The Tomahawk staff are milking the goats twice a day to help with milk supplies for supplemental bottle feedings. We are excited about our growing animal family at Tomahawk. Here is a photo of Obi Joe as a girl at Tomahawk when she was a camper there as a girl. Obi Joe as a camper at Tomahawk! Girls who attend many of our camps at both Tomahawk Ranch and Sky High Ranch interact with our farm animals as part of their camp programs. Learn more about our summer camps, or register your girl for a memorable camp experience now! #homesteading #overnightcamp #smallanimalfarm #TomahawkRanch

What did you do for your Gold Award project? Usually people have some resources to get food but do not know enough about healthy eating. For my Gold Award Project I focused on helping kids learn where food comes from and about healthy options. To do that, I created an educational program for Metro Caring that was geared to teach kids about food and sustainable crafts. Metro Caring is one of Denver’s largest food assistance programs. It has a fresh food shopping market for low income people at no charge. To help it have available fresh food, it also has gardens for vegetables. Every day Metro Caring distributes food, baby items and personal care products to an average of 70 people. In 2015, Metro Caring completed construction on n a new building. The new building includes a learning area for kids, as well as a classroom for Metro Caring to teach adults about healthy foods. My program is to provide kids a learning activity while their parents are either shopping in the food market or attending a class at Metro Caring. How did you measure the impact your Gold Award project made on your target audience? Hunger is a world problem. By starting with kids at a young age you can teach them how to work with what they have or learn to improve things to eat a little at a time. Once they understand healthy eating, they can spread the word to their parents and others. They may even grow to help others learn what they did. Hunger is everywhere but with these classes maybe a few more people will be able to improve their eating. How is your project sustainable? How will your project continue to impact after your involvement? My project will be sustained by volunteers at Metro Caring. I have prepared 15 lesson plans for Metro Caring to use for children’s activities and put together supplies for the activities. I copied the lesson plans and put them into three notebooks to make it easy for volunteers to use and add new ideas. I wrote an article about my project for the Metro Caring newsletter so that their volunteers and supporters can learn more about the work I did for my Gold Award. The article was published and is a way to let volunteers know how they can help with the program. I am going to also write a similar article for the Kirk (my church) newsletter for members who might want to do something more at Metro Caring. When the supplies were delivered, Metro Caring was excited and the new volunteer coordinator believed there were several volunteers who are retired teachers that would be interested in doing the classes. In addition to my article in the Newsletter, the coordinator plans to recruit volunteers to teach. What is your project’s global and/or national connection? Around the world there is approximately 925 million people who are under nourished on a daily basis. This means they get less than 2,100 calories a day. This despite world being able to produce enough food to feed everyone. Closer to home, more than 200,000 children in Colorado live below the poverty line. Also, more that 25% of working families in Colorado do not have enough food by the end of the month. Although Metro Caring is working to address these food needs, they do not have a program to help children understand food, what is good for them and how they can create things from other things. My Gold Award project focuses on children and their understanding of food. What did you learn about yourself? My Gold Award project taught me about what I could do—to have courage to lead and to learn at the same time. It also taught me the importance of self-confidence. This was a big project. I put it off for a long time because I did not know what to do. Once I got started though, I figured out I could do it as long as I kept things moving forward. Also, I learned the importance of communication. I needed to keep Metro Caring more informed of my progress. Then when I taught the kids, I learned I had to adjust my lessons based on the age of the kids or if they spoke English. Finally, it taught me that I can make a difference in the world. How will earning your Gold Award impact you in the future? Having made this project work, I suspect I will be more open to leadership positions because of the self-confidence I gained while working on my Gold Award. I learned to accomplish new things, such as new projects to help others, and I may even find a new idea that I want to develop further in my future.  Earning my Gold Award, has given me a sense of pride that I will not hesitate to mention to others.  I also think it will help open doors to other opportunities. Why do you feel the Gold Award was an important part of your Girl Scout experience? Ever since I joined Girl Scouts, I have wanted to get my Gold Award. The reason being that my brother was a Boy Scout and was doing a ton of fun things. So I though in Girl Scouts I could do the same things and I did. We went backpacking, canoeing, camping, spelunking and more I had a ton of fun. But then my brother started working on his Eagle project and I wanted to do one to. So I looked at what Girl Scouts had to offer and I found the Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards. So I started working on them. The Bronze was fun and we did it as a troop. The Silver was more interesting doing it on my own with help from my mom. Then it was time I was old enough to do my Gold Award. I choose something that I wanted to have an impact on and change. The experience was great and it taught me a lot. It was a lot of fun and was a good way I felt to graduate from Girl scouts to being a Counselor. **IMPORTANT NOTE: This blog represents only a small fraction of the hard work, dedication and requirements that go into earning a Girl Scout Gold Award. It is simply a brief summary, which is meant to inspire Girl Scouts to Go Gold in the future. For more information on earning your Gold Award, please email highestawards@gscolorado.org #Denver #Denvermetro #GoldAward #GoldAwardCentennial

Submitted by Ivette Flower Littleton Denver Metro The girls wanted to thank family and friends for supporting Girl Scouts by buying cookies so they are sending out this personalized cookie Thank You card. This story was submitted using the Share Your Stories form. You can share your Girl Scout moments too. #cookies #Littleton