Wednesday, March 05, 2008
New Girl Scout product helps shine light on environment
A pilot program will send Roanoke-area Scouts on a mission to sell fluorescent light bulbs.
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Longevity isn't a quality usually associated with Girl Scout cookies. A box of Thin Mints has a life span of mere minutes in many a home. But Roanoke-area Girl Scouts will soon be peddling products that can last for years: fluorescent light bulbs.
No, there isn't a connection in the two product lines. But the Girl Scouts are good at selling, and green movement proponents are seeking ways to boost purchases of energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs.
So a community activist arm of State Farm Insurance, its Youth Advisory Board, has made a grant of nearly $100,000 to support a pilot program using Girl Scouts in Virginia and students from two high schools in Seattle to sell fluorescent bulbs, starting April 22 and ending Aug. 31.
The Girl Scout cookie-sales season, which began in January, goes through March 31.
The Scouts unveiled the bulb plan Tuesday at their Virginia Skyline Council office in Roanoke. The program's originator, Andrew Varyu, 29, a Seattle resident who described himself as a veteran volunteer for various environmental causes, said, "This is a great way to get teens involved in solving global warming."
The council, which represents 11,500 Girl Scouts in a 36-county area, will coordinate efforts with the schools in Washington. In September at a United Nations conference on climate change, Varyu met Jessica Fagan, 22, a Girl Scout alumna from Roanoke. She wrote the grant request to State Farm, asking that the funding be directed to her home Scouting council.
Wendy Mellenthin, the Skyline Council's chief executive officer, said the project isn't intended mainly as a fundraiser, but more as an education program.
As with most efforts in Scouting, the bulb sales campaign will result in an award that can be worn on uniforms. "We're developing a special environmental patch," Mellenthin said.
Most of the grant money will be used to pay for printed environmental education materials for the Girl Scouts to read and distribute with the bulbs as they sell them. Scout leaders plan to obtain the bulbs from manufacturers, retailers and utilities, either for free or at discounted prices.
But the Girl Scouts won't be discounting their retail price on fluorescent bulbs, which they intend to sell for about $3.50 apiece, roughly the same as in stores. Mellenthin reasoned that reducing their price wouldn't be fair to retailers and would condition the public to expect bargains on fluorescent bulbs -- which normally sell at a considerable premium over incandescent models.
And there's a pricing principle at stake, too. After all, Mellenthin said, "The Girl Scouts don't discount our cookies."
