Smiles for Soldiers Explained!

Update – 2/21/2012 – Smiles4Soldiers is not over!

Smiles4Soldiers, the virtual Gift of Caring, continues through the entire program period! Girls can ask their communities to help Girl Scouting and the military by purchasing a box of cookies to send to soldiers at home and abroad.

 How to Log GOC/Smiles for Soldiers orders in eBudde

• If you have troops choosing to participate in the council’s GOC program, they will collect money for these orders and log these boxes on the C-GOC line of eBudde on the Girls Order tab. Troops are not selecting a cookie variety for these donations – simply entering the total box number on the GOC line of eBudde will allow GSGATL to coordinate varieties to be ordered and shipped to our partnering military organization; Operation Shoe Box. **These cookies will not be part of any troop/SU initial order delivery or additional cookie pick-up. They are being shipped to the military on your behalf**

Each girl with five or more boxes in this program will earn the Smiles4Soldiers patch!

 What about my own Gift of Caring program – my troop has a special one they do each year

• If your troop is participating in their own efforts for a Gift of Caring initiative outside of Smiles4Soldiers, they will order these cookies by the variety (on their order card/in eBudde) to have these cookies physically delivered as part of the initial order or picked up as part of their additional orders for distribution to their chosen organization. Troops can purchase the Gift of Caring patch and/or Cookies 4 A Change patch for local projects from The Girl Scout Badge & Sash Store ($0.85 each).

SfS is optional – you are not required to participate, though there is a patch if a girl has 5 boxes in her order.  You can still do a seperate Gift of Caring project – just put those boxes in the cookie columns of the order forms. I recommend you use a seperate line on the physical order form (and in eBudde if you like) to denote donated boxes.