Girl Scout Molly Moran, a fifth-grader at St. Luke's School in McLean, is learning how to set goals.
When Junior Girl Scout Troop 3153 launched its annual cookie sale, Molly set a goal for herself: 300 boxes.
Her mother, Cathy Moran, offered to pick up the cookies from the sales "depot," but urged Molly to work out a sales plan with her troop leader. That is what Molly did.
She sold 221 boxes to friends and family by working the telephones; then decided to ramp up her effort by opening a booth at Great Falls Shopping Center.
She sold 36 boxes last Friday evening "Her troop has never done booth sales before. I am very proud of her," said her mother. "She is now at 257 [boxes] with 43 more to go."
"It's so close. She is going to come within boxes of doing this goal."
Molly has one more sales opportunity scheduled from 4 to 6 p.m on Friday, Mar. 21, at the east side of the shopping center.
But already, Molly has learned that smiling at customers sells cookies. Several customers who initially passed her by came back later and bought.
"They would go in and say they had 12 boxes at home," said Cathy Moran. "Looking at Molly, with that huge smile on her face, they would come out and say they would buy a couple of boxes.
As always, Thin Mints are this year's best sellers, followed by Tagalongs and Samoas, said Cathy Moran, the leader of the Brownie troop.
"Molly knew she had 'Aloha Chips' that were less popular. She would wait for the dads to come, and she would sell them the ones she needed to sell -- the Aloha Chips," said her mother, who formerly managed a rewards and recognitions section of performance management for AT & T.
"As an adult, you go to seminars where they tell you to write your goals down," she said.
"I personally remember the first goal I ever set in my life was the number of Girl Scout cookies I sold," said Cathy Moran.