Girl Scouts prepare for cookie sales this weekend

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Girl Scouts are getting ready for this year's sale which begins on Sunday.

Your favorite cookies will first be distributed at their Mega Drop Event on Saturday.

Cookies booths will pop up all over the Central Valley through March 10th and you can find a location with your smartphone.

"All you have to do is type in your location and it will actually locate a Girl Scout cookie booth in your area or in that proximity," said Amanda Romo, Girl Scouts of Central California South.

Romo said classics such as Thin Mints and Thanks-A-Lot will return along with a new kind of cookie, Gluten Free Caramel Chocolate Chip.

"It is a hint of sea salt in the caramel chocolate chip. So it has contrast between sea salt, caramel, chocolate chip," she said.

But once cookie season ends the hard work doesn't stop.

Girl Scouts from kindergarten through high school learn valuable lessons.

"When they go through the cookie program they are learning the five essential life skills. Which is goal setting, decision making, money management, business ethics, and people skills," said Romo.

Girls Scouts like Ariana Rodriquez volunteer those skills for community projects.

Last fall Rodriquez helped collect donations for the Fresno County Sheriff's Reading Posse Book Collection.

"We donated them for kids who didn't have enough money to buy them. So they would go out in their cars and if they saw somebody who needed a book or a blanket they would give it to them," said Rodriquez.

Money collected from cookie sales will be donated to local shelters or community service projects in the Central Valley.