MARYSVILLE The Puget Sound area Girl Scouts have selected a local girl to be the voice and face of Operation Cookie Drop, an effort to provide U.S. military service personnel with goodies while helping the younger uniformed personnel raise money.
Franseska Franqui Rojas is a Marysville resident who has sold thousands of boxes of Girl Scouts cookies each year of her short life.
The 11-year-old has been a top seller for years with her local Troop 401 and is actively involved in other community outreach efforts, helping clean up a local stream and renovate the shoreline with beneficial plants, for example.
For that reason Franqui was selected to kick off the month-long cookie drive on KOMO TV 4s afternoon news broadcast last Friday. Rojas was interviewed live on the March 2 Four Oclock News by anchor Mary Nam, who marveled at how calm and well-spoken the little girl was. After Rojas introduced the program that lets customers designate a purchase to be sent to soldiers around the world, Nam had her turn around and display all her badges, patches and other awards on her green vest.
It was awesome, Rojas said afterward.
She admitted to being a little nervous at the beginning but the butterflies dispersed after she saw how the many studio cameras and displays showed the on-air personalities from every angle.
When I saw how the newspeople did it, it calmed me down, Rojas said.
She said her family made the trip four hours early due to a threatened snow shower, and she admitted that her father Mario advised her not to be pestering, but when the red light went on Rojas calmly explained how the program works. Last year KOMO and the Girl Scouts dropped 40,000 boxes of cookies on sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen around the world, and recovering in hospitals. Customers can write a message on the boxes and that will be sent to service personnel serving in Iraq, Rojas added.
We talked about cookie sales and how I talked to customers, Rojas explained. This is important because we want to show how much we support the soldiers in Iraq.
Franquis selection to start the ball rolling this year was a no-brainer according to Erin Baldwin, a recruiter for the Totem Council based out of Seattle that covers the area from Pierce to Whatcom counties and the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas.
Shes one of our top cookie sellers, selling over a thousand boxes consistently. Shes a leader at her elementary school and shes a great public speaker, Baldwin said. She immediately came to mind.
Baldwin said the fifth-grader at the Quil Ceda Elementary School co-op is an achiever who has a wealth of poise and confidence far beyond her years.
Franqui is the first one to include other children, to speak up for the right way of doing things and shes extremely self-confident for her age, Baldwin said.
Tina Johnson is the public relations director for the Totem Council and said Rojas came to the top of the pile through the interviews, and is a natural born salesperson.
This is the first entrepreneurial venture for most girls, Johnson said. Its a great way for a girl to discover her skills.
Operation Cookie Drop is sponsored by KOMOs parent company Fisher Communications and the Girl Scouts and goes until March 18. Purchases can be made from any Girl Scout and designated for military shipment.