Yet another well-loved, made in USA product is popping up around the country for a limited time: Girl Scout Cookies.  There are many wonderful reasons to support the Girl Scouts, but USA Love List fans might be interested to know that the cookies are freshly baked and boxed for the sale each year at two different regional bakeries and distributed to girl-run “businesses” around the USA.

The three core cookies, Thin Mints, Peanut Butter Sandwiches aka Do Si Do's, and Shortbread aka Trefoils are available nationwide, with the alternative names depending on the bakery. Tagalongs, anyone? Want a Samoa? Otherwise known as Caramel Delights and Peanut Butter Patties, these longstanding favorites are also currently available nationwide but could change in the future. The other three flavors differ by region. In certain regions, cookie fans are getting a glimpse of a new lemon-flavored cookie, Savannah Smiles, released on the occasion of Girl Scouts' 100th year from its founding by Juliette Gordon Low in Savannah, GA.

Cookie season begins today in the Philadelphia area where Girl Scout cookies originated. For those around the country, www.girlscoutcookies.org has a cookie finder website and iPhone app providing availability info based on zip code.  Prices and proceeds vary slightly by region too, but out of a typical $3.50 box of cookies in Philly, roughly fifty cents goes to the troop that sold it to fund their activities. A full two dollars goes to the local Girl Scout Council to support scholarships, programs, and camps for girls, so the money paid for those tasty treats goes a long way. Girl Scouts also also runs a nation-wide program called Cookies From Home where supporters can buy cookies from a girl scout to be sent to service men and women overseas through the USO. The theme for the sale is, “What Can A Cookie Do?” The answer, naturally, is probably more than you imagined.

If you see girl scouts out in the cold selling cookies this year, it is not a plot to sabotage your new year's resolutions. It is an important opportunity for girls to learn about business and finance. How fitting that our young women are selling an American-made product. Give them your support with the hope that they will grow up to buy, make, design, or manufacture many more American products in their promising futures.