Cookie closer — Girl Scout sells her 100,000th box of cookies in Chicago

Bristol Sjostrom loves selling cookies.

After seven years as a Girl Scout, the 12-year-old hit a milestone by selling her 100,000th box in Chicago.

Any Girl Scout could do the same, she says. All it takes is hard work. She sometimes spends 12 to 14 hours a day going door-to-door or selling from tables.

Her work paid off Wednesday when she sold her milestone box at 2 N. La Salle St. The unsuspecting buyer received a gift basket.

Bristol is driven in part by her desire to help first responders, she says. She collects donations to purchase cookies that she delivers to police officers and firefighters in a seven-county area.

“Sometimes heroes need help too,” she said from her hometown of Gardner, about 70 miles southwest of Chicago.

Her feat is impressive by any means, but she’s not the only high-achieving Girl Scout to sell thousands of boxes of cookies.

Last season, Bristol sold more than 22,000 boxes. That was a bit more than half the number sold by the region’s top seller, who sold more than 40,000 boxes, according to Tonisha Hood, spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana.

Bristol is deeply dedicated to selling cookies, her mother says.

Provided by Marie Sjostrom

“She goes out every single day after school,” says Marie Sjostrom, who’s also the leader of Bristol’s Girl Scout troop.

Sometimes, when going door-to-door, her mom would suggest they call it a night. But “she’d say, ‘Two more houses,’” Marie Sjostrom said.

It also takes a lot of family support; her mother usually supervises the operation.

“Any girl could [do this] if they had support from their family,” her mom said.

Besides using donations to deliver hundreds of boxes of cookies to first responders, Bristol also donates cookie proceeds to other causes.

In 2022, Bristol used the sales of more than 22,000 boxes to buy a service dog for a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, her mother said.

Her Girl Scout troop also performs acts of philanthropy. They’ve used cookie sales to purchase CPR mannequins for the paramedics in the troop’s home base of Mazon. They also bought a defibrillator for a truck stop in Morris, Marie Sjostrom said.

Those donations are the result of Bristol’s fascination with first responders, her mom says.

Asked what she wants to do when she grows up, Bristol says she wants “to be a veterinarian, a police officer, a firefighter — or everything combined.”

Editor’s note: Bristol Sjostrom sold her 100,000th box of cookies at 2 N. La Salle St. The address was incorrect in an earlier version of this article.