Girl Scouts Give Cookies to Casper Health Caregivers

Samoas. Trefoils. Thin Mints. Tagalongs. And the new Lemon-ups.

As the Girl Scouts cookie marketing campaign put it a while back, "resistance is futile."

Futile the resistance to not want them. Futile the resistance to not buy them.

Futile the resistance imposed by the extreme social distancing at hospitals due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Friday, several Girl Scout leaders loaded 600 boxes of the precious comfort food for those comforting and attending to the patients at the Wyoming Medical Center.

Those 600 boxes are among the 8,000 boxes the Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming Council is donating to 13 hospitals in the two states, said Briana Black, southeast Wyoming recruitment manager for the council.

"We know that this is a challenging time for our hometown heroes especially, and they're working extremely hard," Black said. "So we just wanted to show appreciation and support for health care workers and maybe bring a little bit of joy to their day in this challenging time."

It's been hard for the Girls Scouts themselves, too.

On March 20, the council put in place social distancing measures to slow the spread of the virus, Black said. In Wyoming and Montana, there are 9,200 girls and 3,000 volunteers, and 1,000 in 20 troops in the Casper area, she said.

That ended the meetings and events, and even the girls' distribution of the cookies ordered before the shutdown, she said. They will distribute the cookies after the shutdown is lifted, she added.

However, they've still been able to work on their entrepreneurship programs and badges, and participate in virtual meetings, Black said.

The offices are still open, and that's how the Montana-Wyoming Council was able to donate the money for the cookies, she said.

The council contacted the hospitals and worked out a way to deliver the cookies because of the social distancing restrictions.

Black and several other volunteers loaded the cookies into SUVs at the local office headquarters at 428 Durbin St.

They drove to the Wyoming Medical Center's west parking garage, unloaded the boxes onto dollies, but only Black and the volunteers were allowed into the hospital where they rode the elevator a couple of floors down, unloaded the dollies and returned to the garage. Hospital workers then would pick up the boxes after the volunteers left, Black said.

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