Our church is celebrating it's 25th anniversary tomorrow, and we as a church family have been doing a lot of things in the community as part of the celebration. A creative thing the church did was give $5 to each child, and ask the children to be like the "good and faithful servant" in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), and multiply that money to give back. One family we know bought a downed tree from a neighbor and chopped the wood to sell as firewood. Another girl made fleece scarves and sold those. We decided to make cookie mix jars to sell, so Kathryn used her $5 to buy the Mason jars.
I found a recipe she approved of, and we made the mixes. Kathryn did almost everything herself; I was just a helper, or the "cleaner-upper", as she told one neighbor. After making up the mixes, she chose a fabric, cut out circles, and we put on a rubber band to hold the fabric in place. Then she added a ribbon and we printed decorative tags with the cookie recipe on the back. She really enjoyed the whole process, and kept telling me so. I think she was delighted by how much she was able to do herself. She has grand plans to become the baker of our family, and I have grand plans to have her doing the meal planning in a few years. {grin} She was also brainstorming ideas about making doll clothes from my stash of fabric. I suppose that means we need to start doing more sewing!
Kathryn wanted to go door-to-door to sell her cookie mixes, so we loaded up her little red wagon, and hit the road. She wanted me nearby, but she did all the talking, spoke up clearly, answered questions, and used good manners. I was very proud of my girl. Even more so as I flashed back to my own cookie-selling technique as a painfully shy "Brownie" Girl Scout: stare at ground, tentatively shove order form toward prospective buyer; say nothing. 
Kathryn's sales pitch was so successful that she sold all of her first batch that day, so she re-invested some of the profit to buy more Mason jars, and we made more cookie mixes to sell to friends. One buyer said the packaging, the price, and sales pitch were all irresistible; I think Kathryn may need to be our business manager! Kathryn multiplied her $5 "talent", and will be giving back $45 tomorrow!
I found a recipe she approved of, and we made the mixes. Kathryn did almost everything herself; I was just a helper, or the "cleaner-upper", as she told one neighbor. After making up the mixes, she chose a fabric, cut out circles, and we put on a rubber band to hold the fabric in place. Then she added a ribbon and we printed decorative tags with the cookie recipe on the back. She really enjoyed the whole process, and kept telling me so. I think she was delighted by how much she was able to do herself. She has grand plans to become the baker of our family, and I have grand plans to have her doing the meal planning in a few years. {grin} She was also brainstorming ideas about making doll clothes from my stash of fabric. I suppose that means we need to start doing more sewing!
Kathryn wanted to go door-to-door to sell her cookie mixes, so we loaded up her little red wagon, and hit the road. She wanted me nearby, but she did all the talking, spoke up clearly, answered questions, and used good manners. I was very proud of my girl. Even more so as I flashed back to my own cookie-selling technique as a painfully shy "Brownie" Girl Scout: stare at ground, tentatively shove order form toward prospective buyer; say nothing. Kathryn's sales pitch was so successful that she sold all of her first batch that day, so she re-invested some of the profit to buy more Mason jars, and we made more cookie mixes to sell to friends. One buyer said the packaging, the price, and sales pitch were all irresistible; I think Kathryn may need to be our business manager! Kathryn multiplied her $5 "talent", and will be giving back $45 tomorrow! 
