JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – No business has been immune to the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak — not even the Girl Scouts.
The public health crisis began to unfold during peak Girl Scout cookie season. With stay-at-home orders in place, it left families like Cordelia Ray’s with stockpiles of cookies and no place to sell them.
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“We still had several cookie booths that we should have had done, but with how crazy everything got, we weren’t able to do our last few cookie sales,” said Ray, whose three daughters are in Girl Scouts.
It presented a predicament for the Jacksonville family. As Ray noted, her family couldn’t let the cookies go to waste and donating them wasn’t really an option since they’re a big fundraiser for the organization.
“We still have to get the money from them in order to pay our council and in order for our girls to do their activities,” she said.
So Ray came up with a way to brighten frontline workers’ days without charging them for the cookies. She reached out on Facebook to people willing to buy boxes for medical workers at NAS Jacksonville.
But she never expected the kind of response she got.
“It’s been overwhelming,” Ray said. “Like I said, I thought it would be my friends and family, but people in Orange Park, Fleming Island, like everywhere, have reached out to me to donate.”
For every $4 or $5 donated to the cause, Ray said her family can send a box of cookies to the health care workers stationed at the Navy base on Jacksonville’s Westside.
It’s fair to wonder why Ray chose this particular base.
“My husband is active duty and he works in the emergency department at the ER, so it’s definitely near and dear to my heart,” she acknowledged, while adding that it’s a nice treat for Easter.
Girl Scouts USA is encouraging people nationwide to buy cookies, which can be delivered to their front doors. You can also donate boxes to first responders and medical workers.