CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – In her seventh year as a Girl Scout, a Charlotte 12-year-old has broken the North Carolina record for number of Girl Scout cookies sold.
And now, she’s reinvesting the money earned in a community project for her Silver Award by helping children with dyslexia.
Olive Gordon sold 12,801 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the 2023-2024 cookie season. Her secret? The weekends and a perfect location.
“I gave up a lot of time. Every single weekend, every single day, I tried to sell Girl Scout cookies, and we came up with this whole sales pitch,” Gordon said. “If you’re interested in selling cookies, you have to ask everyone … We sell them in South End and Uptown a lot.”
Gordon’s cookie stats are some that most Girl Scouts couldn’t fathom achieving:
- 2017-2018: 300 boxes
- 2018-2019: 2,026 boxes
- 2019-2020: 6,038 boxes
- 2020-2021: 8,735 boxes
- 2021-2022: 4,443 boxes
- 2022-2023: 3,610 boxes
- 2023-2024: 12,801 boxes
That brings her lifetime cookie sales to 37,953 boxes in just seven years.
“I love selling Girl Scout cookies. It’s so much fun to get to talk to so many people,” Gordon said with a glimmer in her eye. “Because if somebody says ‘no,’ there’s always somebody new to talk to. I just love it.”
She and her troop sold so many cookies the past few years that their cookies are now delivered in a semi truck. ”We have a troop full of ‘Cookie Queens,’” Gordon said
Every box of cookies sold helps fund what each Girl Scout troop is able to do.
“We like [to] do badges, like the ones on my vest, but we also go on adventures and try to help our community,” Gordon said.
Over the course of their seven years together, Gordon’s troop have often gone on hikes in Charlotte, have visited the U.S. National White Water Center a few times, and have traveled to Savannah, Georgia, where Girl Scouts was founded by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912.
In 2025, they plan to go to Puerto Rico using the money they raise from selling cookies. With Gordon’s cookie sales alone this season, she sold around $77,000 worth of cookies.
“Around $65,000 goes to council so that they can pay for people to be employed there, as well as pay for the cookies. And then we get about $12,000 to $10,000 to put toward our bank account, which we are hoping to use for our girl scout Silver Award,” she said.
The Silver Award is the highest Girl Scout Cadette Award a Girl Scout can achieve. Gordon and several of her troop members are putting in the hours to earn it.
“We’re going to work on a dyslexia project where we try to put screeners into a school named Omni, and maybe [Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools], if we can,” Gordon said. “My group and I are going to work on that, as well as raising raising awareness around dyslexia, and what you should do once your child is diagnosed, and how to diagnose your child.”
For Gordon, the project is personal.
“I have dyslexia. Once I got the accommodations I needed, I could finally reach my full potential, and I was able to achieve the goals I needed,” she said. “I got special glasses for reading and tracking, and I did a few other things that helped me be on a level playing field with the rest of the class. And I want every kid to be able to have that.”
Gordon said she brought the idea to her troop, and was grateful that her peers are joining her in the project.
“I’m happy that they’re willing to help me out no matter what, no matter what it is, and I know that I’ll be willing to help them out when they are trying to be really passionate about a project,” she said.
She explained becoming the unofficial “Cookie Queen” of North Carolina has taught her much more than how to compile a winning sales pitch.
“I’ve learned that I can actually do a lot more than I think I can. I have also learned that if I just put my mind to it, I can do anything that I dream of,” Gordon said.
Besides selling cookies and the prestigious Silver Award, Gordon has other aspirations.
“I’d like to be a Supreme Court justice, because there need to be more women representing women,” she said.
But before that day comes, she is focused on her studies, time with her friends, working toward being a Girl Scout Delegate and, of course, selling more Girl Scout cookies.
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