Doughing a Good Deed

The Brownies in one Westside troop took drastic action when they kept hearing the “sorry but I’m on a diet” excuse as they sold Girl Scout cookies this year.

They called in an air strike.

Twenty-six resourceful girls from Mar Vista Troop 297 suggested that dieters buy a box and donate it to Navy fliers and sailors on an aircraft carrier patrolling the Persian Gulf as part of this country’s vigilance against Iraq.

Hundreds did. And on Thursday, officials at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado were awash in 560 boxes of cookies delivered by the girls for crew members aboard the Independence, which is on duty off Saudi Arabia.

“It’s going to be a nice taste of home. These are going to be good for the guys to experience,” said Independence crew member Joseph Turner, an aviation storekeeper who was packing the cookies to send to the carrier along with his next shipment of fighter plane supply parts.

The idea to solicit cookie donations came late in this year’s sales campaign, according to troop leader Janette Minasian Pires. Brownies were writing letters to servicemen, so why not send cookies as well?

The 8- and 9-year-olds were soon encouraging adults to buy cookies and give them back if they weren’t interested in eating them.

“It was sort of hard selling to some people. You had to coax them into buying,” said 9-year-old troop member Lauren Schubert of Santa Monica. “If they were on a diet, I said, ‘OK, we take donations.’ ”

Before the naval maneuver was over, other Brownie troops from Santa Monica, Culver City and West Los Angeles were dropping off donated boxes of cookies on Pires’ front porch.

“There are a lot of patriotic people out there,” she said.

Scouting officials in Los Angeles said Thursday that Troop 297’s organized cookie collection was a first. But it may not be the last.

“National Girl Scouts Director Marsha Evans is very supportive of this troop’s efforts,” said Florence Newsom, executive director of the Scouts’ Angeles Council.

Evans, it turns out, is a retired Navy rear admiral.

At the San Diego base, the girls were shown Navy planes, visited a helicopter squadron, tried on flight suits and toured the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. Navy officials promised that the girls’ cargo would be babied on the long flight to the Gulf.

“This is the first time anyone’s ever given us Girl Scout cookies,” said Cmdr. Dave Koontz, a base spokesman. But rough handling won’t be the way these cookies crumble.