Kids’ Fund Drives Show a 5 O’Clock Shadow

Mike Triolo can spot them coming. Sometimes he ducks. More often, he just sighs and reaches for his wallet.

“I’m always the target, the victim, the buyer,” says Triolo, a Nabisco Biscuit Co. manager who says he’s being asked by more and more co-workers to help their children’s fund-raising efforts by buying cookies, popcorn, wrapping paper, even wild birdseed.

Where once girls and boys went door to door, ringing doorbells and shyly asking neighbors if they cared to buy, adults now rush their colleagues, order forms in hand, in what has become a billion-dollar business.

“I don’t mind buying the raffle tickets or a cancer benefit--and the $1.50 candy bars don’t bother me,” Triolo says. “But when someone comes around and the cheapest thing on their list is $8 or $10, that bugs me.”

Triolo, 23 and childless, is not the only one who finds the whole trend troublesome. Many carrying the order forms are themselves reluctant hucksters, selling only to other parents.

“I really just pass it to the people I’m friendly with--people who have children too,” says Laurel Wintersteen, a clerical worker at State Farm Insurance Co.

For parents faced with little free time and fears of letting their children go to strangers’ homes unsupervised, the house call by a Girl Scout pitching cookies many not be extinct, but it’s on the endangered list.

Thousands of organizations across the country, from schools to Scouts to sports teams, sell $4.5-billion worth of goods a year, according to the Assn. of Fund Raisers and Directors, which tracks fund-raising companies.

For some groups, the money buys extras--such as camping trips. But often it’s for essentials, such as textbooks and even teachers’ salaries, says Russell Lemieux, the association’s executive director.

“About 75% of the dollars are being raised by school organizations,” Lemieux says. “I can confirm that parents are becoming more involved over time.”

Which means children are becoming less involved, and that troubles Lemieux.

“There’s a definite educational value kids gain in going out and selling,” he says. “They gain in understanding the value of money and increasing interpersonal skills.”

Having parents sell for their children goes against the goal of the fund-raising efforts, says Marianne Ilaw, spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of the USA.

“We do encourage parents to support and participate, but the purpose of the sales is for girls to go out and learn,” Ilaw says.

Chicago Scout leader Cindy Flayton says some girls canvass the high-rise buildings they live in, but many parents are hesitant.

“It’s not like when I was a girl,” she says. “You have to make compromises. My husband posts the list at work.”

But Flayton still insists that her daughter deliver the cookies, in full Scout uniform, and say, “Thank you,” to every buyer.

Triolo says he sold door to door in high school to raise money, and today he would welcome a sales pitch from a child, since he can’t always dodge parents.

“One woman selling for her nephew--not even her kid, her nephew--sold $850 worth of stuff,” he says. “I ducked her, but sometimes I’m not so lucky.”