GIRL SCOUTS SEND COOKIES TO THE TROOPS

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- More than 300 cases of Tag-A-Longs, Thin Mints and other varieties of Girl Scout cookies will leave Cape Girardeau today, the first step on their way to U.S. troops still stationed in Saudi Arabia.

The cookies have been donated by the public and from Girl Scouts through the Otahki Girl Scout Council, which covers 11 Missouri counties and is based in Cape Girardeau.

Millie Turner of the Girl Scout Council, said sending cookies to the troops is one of the biggest service projects the council has ever taken on. Though it was first organized before the war began, the end of the war didn't put the project on hold.

"We know there are still lots of troops there," Turner said. "It's going to be like a touch of home to them, and now that the war is over and they may be delayed in getting home as fast as they want to, they may need that."

Truckloads of cookies will leave the Girl Scout Office, 1432 Kurre Lane in Cape Girardeau, today at 1 p.m.

Genesis Transportation of Cape Girardeau will pack and wrap the cookies, and on Monday, they will be taken by truck to a U.S. Defense Department depot in Columbus, Ohio, Turner said.

From there, the treats will be on their way to the Gulf region.

Turner said she and other Girl Scout officials have been working since October with the Defense Department and the Red Cross to assure that the cookies will get to the troops.

But, she said, Girl Scouts themselves are to thank for organizing the public's donation of the cookies.

"All 238 troops in the council actually made contact with the public and also donated cookies themselves," she said. "The girls really did this project."

Through the project, Turner said, scouts have become more aware of the U.S. involvement in the war. "They've really united for one common goal," she said.

In all, Girl Scouts, Brownie Girl Scouts and Junior Girl Scouts in the 11-county area sold more than 3,700 cases of cookies. Delivery of the cookies ends today.

The collection of cookies for Desert Storm troops marks the end of National Girl Scout Week.