Posted on 03/14/2009 4:42:45 AM PDT by GonzoII
She is bright-eyed, pig-tailed and resplendent in Girl Scout green and a multitude of merit badges.
Wild Freeborn -- adorable and age 8 -- has caused considerable hubbub with entrepreneurial spirit and a little homemade video.
"Help me help others. Buy cookies. They're yummy," little Wild says in her one-minute sales pitch for Thin Mints, Samoas and other traditional mainstays of Girl Scout cookie cuisine.
The modest message included an online order form, was videotaped by her father, Bryan Freeborn, in the family living room in Brevard, N.C., and posted at YouTube.com
But not for long.
• Click here for the Newsweek link to the video
The Girl Scouts were not pleased with Wild's intention to sell 12,000 boxes of cookies and help send her troop to summer camp. The organization ordered the video removed from the social-networking site on the grounds that it violated a policy that bars online sales of Girl Scout cookies. Officials were also concerned that Wild's methods could put less techno-enabled young ladies at a disadvantage.
The collective outrage among perplexed cookie fans went viral -- and global -- once a hungry news media got its choppers into the situation.
"Cookie monster," proclaimed Newsweek. "U.S. Girl Scout video scandal," blared a headline at the Guardian, a British newspaper.
"Cookie controversy," said NBC, which managed to corral Wild, her father, and Denise Pesich, a Girl Scouts of the USA representative, for a sitdown interview Friday.
"It's girl safety at its core," Ms. Pesich said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
WOW, names for kids are sure taking a turn for the weird
as long as we are talking about GS cookies,
the Caramel ones are GREAT
Her 1st name is Wild? Good luck with that as she becomes a teenager.
I always wondered if the people who seem to hang out in the store fronts when GS Cookies are for sale are there on purpose to create “barriers” for people who simply want to enter the store to go shopping.
Wild Freeborn.
Man, that could be a name from either end of the ideological spectrum...or a Kurt Vonnegut character. ; )
I’m mixed on this. I know about the G/S policy about online sales (having had kids in Scouts), but at the same time I admire her audacity. But surely her folks and her had to know about the policy.
And don’t even get me started with parents who take the order forms to work and hustle for their girl’s sales!!! That’s as bad as online solicitation, imo.
Mine had to do it on their own, as it was intended to be.
It is national GSUSA policy to not sell cookies via the internet
This is a non story about people (parents) who think they are above the rules
(which are rightfully intended to protect children)
if the girls are in your way ask the manager to tell them to relocate their table
frankly, when we sell cookies outside grocery stores we locate well off to the side of the entrance and always run out and leave disappointed people
The Girl Scout organization must be, like the YWCA, a group of bed-wetting, hand-wringing liberal misfits who don't have a CLUE about all of the things that made America great, especially individual initiative and entrepeneurship.
Like most liberals, they sicken, and madden me at the same time.
Yeah, it's safer going door-to-door with all of the child molesters living amongst us, perverts who have been set free by liberal judges.
Let the parents decide what is best for their children, you liberal twit (Mz. Pesich).
They’re usually right outside the door where I live, which is exactly where I would put a stand if I could/ They get me every time even when I’m just buying it for the charity to which they give cookies.
Samoas rock!!!
Don't get me started . . . . once knew of a couple who were going to name their daughter Harley.
Then I reminded them of what the 16 year old boys in her class would say to her once she got to be that age.
The girl scouts can decide how the cookies are sold. It’s their marketing strategy and they have a right to tell girl scouts how to sell them. I just wish they’d stop them from camping out in front of the grocery stores.
Mom Ping.
The child’s name aside (Wild Freeborn???) this has been GS policy regarding cookie sales for as long as I have been involved with my daughter, and most likely longer.
I do not understand why this is being made into a media circus. The girl violated GS rules, a rule that is specifically spelled out to them at the cookie kickoff BEFORE sales start. I personally have no sympathy for her.
She DID violate GS rules, which apparently were made clear to her and her cohorts at the beginning of the sale. However, perhaps the powers that be should reexamine the rules. This is free enterprise at its best.
Some parents think they are soooo above the rules...
I agree. You can’t participate in the sale without signing the agreement to abide by the rules. Nothing further is relevant.
This is fairly common now, in a bunch of stupid spellings (Harlie, Harlee).
That sounds rather communist to me.
It’s not her fault that other girl scouts aren’t as tech-saavy as she is. I thought it was a vital part of being an American to “Do what you can, with what you have where you are.”
Doesn’t it seem a little crazy that you can sell your body on Craigslist or E-bay, but you can’t sell cookies!
It’s really very cut and dry. There were only 2 choices here, sign the agreement and abide by the rules, or don’t sign it and don’t sell any cookies.
This is not rocket science here. I know here the rule was emphasized, not only at the regional kickoff, but at the individual troop levels.
The fact this made it to the media really, really bothers me.
I don’t think any father should be videotaping his 8 year old and posting it on youtube, no matter how innocuous the recording, especially since we all now know her name and where she lives.
There are crazies out there. It’s not something I’d do as a parent.
I agree with you. This is dangerous.
We had the same instructions. The benefit of internet selling, except at the level of putting a notice on your church’s or school’s website (for example) escapes me, anyway: the shipping cost outside your neighborhood would be far more than the troop’s return on the cookies.
But anyway, it’s the rules, whether anyone agrees with it or not. I’m NOT surprised at the media’s making a big deal out of it, since they don’t believe any liberals should have to keep their agreements or abide by the rules that bind lesser mortals. (Yes, I’m making a political judgment about people who name their child “Wild.” So sue me.)
YOU can sell cookies - or your body, if you choose to and somebody's interested in buying. Sell cookies you bought at Wal-mart, sell cookies you make yourself. However, a Girl Scout cannot sell Girl Scout cookies over the internet, because she and her parents/guardian agreed to that rule.
And of course, an 8-year-old’s attempt to sell sex on Craigslist would probably run into much bigger legal problems than a “Cut it out” from the National Girl Scouts Council.
She didn’t sell the cookies via the internet.
She marketed the cookies via the internet.
Something apparently got lost in translation with you. I certainly wasn’t suggesting that an 8 year old sell her body, I was commenting on the fact that many people do sell themselves on those websites.
I find it kind of ironic and comical that such a flap is being made over this cookie incident.
That's not true. Other facts could be relevant. Like if the terms of the agreement violated the law, or violated public policy. You can't contract to break the law.
That wasn't the case here (the rule against online selling wasn't against the law or against public policy), but it's not accurate to say that nothing is relevant outside a signed agreement.
If the issue were the propriety of selling cookies on the internet, the issue of what else is sold on the internet would be relevant. However, the issue is an organization’s having rules and its members agreeing to abide by the rules, and then cheating.
Thank you, I’m sure you’re right.
Just offering for clarity. Some people believe the right to contract includes the right to contract anything. That’s never been the case in the USA and hopefully never will be true.
That means the form was a violation of the rules, not the video.
Yes, you’re correct. I was referring only to the specific situation, where the agreement was known to be neither illegal nor harmful to the public good. In addition to not selling on the internet, Girl Scouts also agree that they won’t make sales before the opening date of the sale, and that they will follow the safety rules and money-handling guidelines.
Yes, you are 100% correct!
considering what they named their daughter, the parents sound like they do their “own” thing....guess it won’t be in the Girl Scouts.
Take the gun...but leave the Thin Mints... :)
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