Celebrated every Feb. 22, World Thinking Day was instituted by the Girl Scouts and Girl Guides to inspire people to ponder other cultures and contemplate global concerns.

This year’s theme is “Connect” and emphasizes three kinds of connections, according the website for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, www.wagggs.org: connect with me, connect with friends and connect with the world.

Founded in 1912, Girl Scouts has burgeoned into a worldwide charitable and humanitarian force of 2.7 million members (1.9 million girls and 800,000 adults).

More than 59 million women are alumnae of the organization. Almost two-thirds of women civic, corporate and political leaders in America were once Girl Scouts.

Girl Scouts started when 51-year-old Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low gathered 18 girls in her hometown of Savannah, Ga.

She was inspired to establish a group to help girls reach their full potential after meeting with Sir Robert Baden-Powell, who founded the Boy Scouts.

The girls played basketball, hiked, swam, camped and learned about the world around them. They studied foreign languages and learned to tell time by the stars. They also worked together to help those in need in their neighborhood.

For most outside the organization, however, their connection with Girl Scouts is through the annual cookie sale.

The tradition began in 1917, when the Mistletoe Troop from Muskogee, Okla. began selling sugar cookies in their high school cafeteria.

In 1922, a simple sugar cookie recipe was published in the Girls Scouts’ national newsletter. All 2,000 Girl Scout troops that year baked the cookies at their homes and sold them as fundraisers.

Today the two sanctioned bakeries, ABC Smart Cookies and Little Brownie Bakers, provide enough cookies for the 200 million boxes sold yearly, yielding $700 million to local troops.

Each local council sets its price and retains half the proceeds. The troops get about 20 percent and the bakeries receive the rest.

Because the bakeries choose the names of the cookies, the same cookie may be packaged under different names, though the recipes are the same. For example, Carmel deLites are also called Samoas and Peanut Butter Patties are the same as Tagalongs.

QUIZ:

1. What is the best selling flavor of Girl Scout cookies?

2. What is the second best selling flavor?

3. What is the third best selling flavor?

4. The Thanks-A-Lot cookies are embossed with the phrase “Thank you” in what five languages?

5. Who, in 1956, described the Girl Scouts as a “force for desegregation”?

6. Little Brownie Bakers produces how many Thin Mint cookies a day?

7. Though the Girl Scouts does not track individual sales, 15-year-old Jennifer Sharpe may hold the record for the most cookies sold in one season. How many boxes did she sell (in 2008)?

8. The first official cookie sale took place in 1933 in which U.S. city?

9. What is the Girl Scout motto?

10. What is the Girl Scout slogan?

ANSWERS:
1. Thin Mints. 2. Caramel de Lites. 3. Peanut Butter Patties. 4. English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Swahili. 5. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 6. 4.5 million. 7. 17,328. 8. Philadelphia, for 23 cents a box. 9. “Be prepared.” 10. “Do a good turn daily.”