Cooking With Girl Scout Cookies? Girl Scouts Host Pinterest Cookie Challenge!

Online, March 18, 2013 (Newswire.com) - Everyone knows Girl Scout Cookies are amazing right out of the box. They also work well as ingredients in many recipes! Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois (GSNI) is hosting a contest via Pinterest collecting recipes featuring Girl Scout Cookies as ingredients. Anyone can enter by following GSNI on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/GSNorthernIL; creating a board called "The Great Girl Scout Cookie Challenge"; pinning photos of food made using Girl Scout Cookies; making sure recipes are included in the comments or linked in some way, and including #GSNICookieChallenge in the post.

The Grand Prize is a Baking Basket valued at $100. Each recipe counts as one entry into the contest. GSNI reserves the right to use photos and recipes collected during this contest in other printed and digital materials. Credit will be given to people who submit recipes. In order to be selected as a winner, participant Pinterest profiles must be connected to Facebook for notification purposes. Entries will be accepted March 18-31, 2013. The winner will be chosen on April 1, 2013. For more information, contact Marissa Garza at [email protected].

Looking for Cookies? - It's not too late to locate Girl Scout Cookies for ingredients or for eating straight out of the box! Girls will be selling cookies at booths inside area locations until March 24. Cookie Booths are the final phase of the Girl Scout Cookie Program and allow customers to buy Girl Scout Cookies through direct sales. All locations accept cash and checks payable to Girl Scouts. Six varieties of cookies will be on sale for only $4 a box.

Fans can find nearby Girl Scout Cookie Booths with the free Cookie Locator mobile app! Searching by GPS location or zip code, customers can find booths in their neighborhoods, map the locations, and even add to calendars. The Cookie Locator App can be downloaded for free by calling **GSCookies (**472665437) from a mobile phone or by searching for "Cookie Locator" in the iPhone App Store or Android Marketplace.

Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois (GSNI) is also introducing 5 for Five. In honor of the five skills girls learn through the Girl Scout Cookie Program (goal setting, decision making, money management, business ethics, and people skills), customers who purchase 5 boxes of cookies will receive a coupon with a unique code. Once they enter the code online, they will be entered into a drawing to win 25 boxes! The contest runs from March 1-29 with the winner being announced via social media on March 29. Visit www.girlscoutsni.org/cookie.html for more information and to enter the unique coupon code!

Other Ways to Locate Cookies - If not approached by a Girl Scout or can't visit a local cookie booth, customers can e-mail [email protected], and cookie orders will be passed on to a local Girl Scout. Customers can also visit www.girlscoutsni.org and use the cookie locator on the homepage.

Girl Scout Cookie Program Benefits - Through Girl Scouting, girls become leaders in their daily lives and prepare for their futures. To millions of girls, Girl Scout Cookies provide an opportunity to travel, explore science and math, and learn about a career. Because not only are these cookies great, but they are at the center of the largest business and economic literacy program for girls! The Girl Scout Cookie Program provides an important ingredient for leadership by helping girls develop five key skills of goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics.

Through the Girl Scout Cookie Program, girls participate in carefully developed, age-appropriate cookie activities that help develop these skills that they can apply throughout their lives. Even the youngest Girl Scouts gain self-confidence and poise by learning how to greet customers and offer cookies for purchase. As girls grow, emphasis is placed on getting to know their product-ingredients, calories-to designing innovative and creative marketing strategies and tools. Girls learn to plan, set goals, build teams, speak up, make decisions, solve problems and manage resources. Over time, the skills girls gain set them on a path to be leaders, in their own lives and in their communities.

Girls also have the opportunity to give back to their community through the Girl Scout Cookie Program with the Gift of Caring: Cookies for the Military or the Community Gift of Caring. Girls can choose from offering customers the chance to purchase cookies for soldiers, or purchase cookies for a community organization designated by the troop.

Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois serves nearly 18,000 girls and 5,500 adult volunteers in parts or all of Boone, Carroll, Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Jo Daviess, Kane, Kendall, Lake, LaSalle, Lee, McHenry, Ogle, Stephenson, Whiteside, and Winnebago Counties. For more information on how to join, volunteer, reconnect or donate to Girl Scouts, visit www.girlscoutsni.org or call 1-800-242-5591.