The Girl Scouts industry used to be an outlet for young women to learn leadership skills and bond over adventures. But over the past couple of years, it’s turned into a cult for money and mind control.

I have been a first-hand witness of my little sister’s experience in the Girl Scouts turning sour over the years, especially when the cookie-selling season comes around. These elementary school girls turn into cut-throat saleswomen and forget the true reason behind their fundraising.

50-75% of the money raised from selling cookies goes to scholarships and programs to benefit your local community. This is a good cause that should be recognized at scout meetings and troop leaders should talk about it with the girls, so they are aware of who they are raising money to help. Instead, meetings are spent on the girls deciding which expensive activities to do with the portion of the money they receive from selling cookies.

They set exceedingly high sales goals and are pressured to try to reach or surpass them. If they don’t reach their selling goal, they are required to buy the cookies leftover themselves. This serves as motivation to sell as much as possible.

Most would assume that girls would aim for selling 100-150 boxes per selling season. This is a healthy goal for the average girl scout. Yet, these girls are setting goals from 500-1000 boxes individually, and raising them to beat the goals of their peers. The competitive nature of trying to be the highest seller in each troop overpowers the girls’ motivation to raise money to actually help people, which defeats the entire point of selling. We need to, as a community, bring the simple joy back to selling cookies that have been replaced by competitiveness.

The mission statement of the Girl Scouts is “Girl Scouts builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.” And I think the current troop leaders need to be reminded of this.