CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (WDBJ) - Girl Scout Cookies are falling from the sky as the town’s drones are now delivering them right to your doorstep.
Wing, the drone delivery company launched in October 2019, has been able to help by buying a bunch of cookie boxes while sales have been down, but more importantly give these girls a chance to get some hands-on STEM experience.
The Virginia Skyline Council is the first in the world to be able to do this.
“Girl scout cookies was a great addition to our existing menu,” Global Communications Lead Lia Reich said.
A staff member at Wing was worried about hometown Girl Scouts falling short of their annual cookie sales – but they wanted to help beyond that.
“It was just another opportunity to support a small business and beyond that just introducing the girls to STEM and really getting access to the technology,” Reich said. “It’s just exciting to see how many people have the access to this special treat during this time.”
Virginia Skyline Council CEO Nikki Williams said the Girl Scouts have seen about a 35 percent decline over their pre-pandemic cookie program.
“It certainly has been a challenge but created an opportunity for the girls to think outside the box and to really garner and harness some of those skills that are going to become lifelong skills in any career path,” Williams said.
The girls are getting that real-life experience, watching the deliveries – even helping to pack boxes.
“If you order one box of cookies, they have to put water in it for it to be heavy enough, so it lowers down,” Alice Goerlich from Troop 144 said. “It was really, really cool because I haven’t seen anything like it. There’s just this drone flying through the air delivering your cookies and it sounds like a swarm of bees that is coming.”
Girl Scouts are learning about the science, math and history behind getting to be the first to do this.
“Even little changes in our world like COVID, I doubt that we would even be thinking about drone delivery because we wouldn’t have to think about that,” Gracie Walker from Troop 224 said. “I think it’s a really awesome thing to be part of history with drones and with Girl Scouts.”
Wing bought 3,000 boxes of cookies but won’t stop there if the demand keeps up.
Cookie season usually ends by April 30th, but because of this unusual year the council got an extension through the end of May.
“The idea of drones delivering anything is something we’ve heard about for the last several years and that this could become more of a reality to us on a regular basis, so to be part of that in the early stages has been exciting for the council and the girls and certainly something that has garnered interest from all over the country,” Williams said.
Wing wants to give the girls a chance to visit the Christiansburg facility to one day really be able to see the behind-the-scenes work they do here to help inspire them as they choose their career paths.
“This is going to go much further than this in making sure the girls feel that they are in touch with possible career paths and hopefully as drone delivery becomes much more commonplace in the near future this could be a career path for many of them,” Reich said.
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The Link LonkMay 08, 2021 at 09:57AM
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Hometown Girl Scouts deliver cookies on drones - WDBJ7
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