Day one of Girl Scout cookie sales proved to be a sweet success. At a booth Sunday for less than an hour, I saw Rockrimmon Elementary third-graders Taelynn and Madison selling cookies to seemingly every other person who strolled by.The numbers are staggering. Rachel Petty, a Girl Scout Cadet, explained the scope of the operation."There's roughly around 20,000 cookie cases, and each case has around 12 cases in each box. Which makes around a quarter million packages of individual cookies," Petty said."So yeah, a lot of cookies," she added.Before the sales began, Saturday was the "calm before the storm" - if you could call it that. Cookie pickup day is when troops get their inventory for the six-week-long season.The season teaches young girls many important life skills, according to Petty, who has been a Girl Scout for about eight years."Communication skills and money management. When I was little, I had a stutter, and I was able to overcome that by talking to people," Petty said.Janet Finan, whose daughter is a third-generation Girl Scout, had her trunk filled to the brim with Samoas for her troop."We end up selling all of them," Finan said."She loves the friends she's made. She loves selling cookies. We sometimes call her the little hustler because she's so loud and vocal at the booth sales," Finan said.Like preparing a team for a big game, Finan says, along with communication and money management, the cookie sales help teach Girl Scouts sportsmanship and friendly competition."Friendly and fair competition, and sportsmanship too," Finan said.Girl Scout cookie season runs until March 15._______Watch KOAA News5 on your time, anytime with our free streaming app available for your Roku, FireTV, AppleTV and Android TV. Just search KOAA News5, download and start watching. ...read more read less