It's cookie time again for area Scouts
Cross Roads News
Jan 01, 2003 | 406 views | 0
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It's cookie time again for area Scouts
In a matter of days, hundreds of Girl Scouts will be fanning out across South DeKalb to sell everyone's favorite cookies.
And whether your favorites are the wildly popular chocolate Thin Mints, gooey Samoas, chocolate-covered Tagalongs with creamy peanut butter, crispy crunchy oatmeal-and-peanut-butter Do-Si-Dos, or Olé Olés, the bite-sized vanilla pecan chip cookies with the big taste -- they will have them.
Yes, it's Girl Scout Cookie time, and you'll have 10 days -- Jan. 24-Feb. 2 -- to place your order for the year. And then wait until March for the deliveries.
The cookies are $3 a box, and they may even be good for you. The Girl Scout Council says all eight varieties of cookies are free of preservatives and artificial colors and are made with 100 percent vegetable shortening.
The annual cookie sales account for the bulk of the funds for the Girl Scouts.
Last year, 25,625 Northwest Georgia Girl Scouts sold 3.8 million boxes of cookies, earning the council $1.8 million that funded troop and council activities, provided financial assistance to girls, supported volunteer recruitment and training, and provided maintenance for the council's five camp properties.
Champion cookie sellers also win trips to Girl Scout camps.
Helen Smith-Tyler said her Lithonia Troop 2060 is ready to take orders and beat records again. Last year , when she had only six girls, the troop sold 160 cases.
This year, she has 40 girls.
"We are going to do a lot better," she said. "This year, our troop wants to sell 500 cases."
Smith-Tyler said her troop will be doing door-to-door as well as bulk sales in front of area Krogers and the Wesley Chapel Wal-Mart. They will also be tapping their parents to sell to co-workers on the job.
In addition to her troop, Smith-Tyler directs the Yellow Wildflower Service Unit that has troops in Lithonia, Stone Mountain and Decatur. She said the unit's 25 Daisy, Brownie and Girl Scout troops are gearing up to better the 2,000 cases it sold last year.
For more information visit http://www.girlscoutsnwga.org/.
Work to start soon on Tupac arts center
By Diane James
Early next month, workmen are expected to begin renovating a former cinema on Memorial Drive to transform it into the Tupac Amaru Shakur Museum.
The five-screen cinema at 5616 Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain was gutted and will be remodeled into a museum chronicling Tupac's career as a rap artist and actor. The 19,100-square-foot will have a film screening room and an education wing where artists will be taught the business of the arts.
It's the first phase of the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts that is being built to honor the slain rap artist, who was shot to death in Las Vegas in 1996 at the height of a promising music and movie career. Often touted as the Marvin Gaye of hip hop, he was only 25 years old. The controversial Tupac parlayed his music into a successful film career. He was cast in six feature films, and starred alongside pop diva Janet Jackson in "Poetic Justice."
Before rising to stardom, Tupac's turbulent life included run-ins with the law, but it's his creative side, as an artist and an actor, that the center will spotlight.
"Tupac wanted to build a safe place for young people to explore the arts," said Valetta Anderson, executive director of the Tupac Shakur Foundation Inc., which is building the center.
Anderson said the museum, being built at a cost of $3 million, should open by June on two-and-a-half acres next to Piccadilly cafeteria.
Anderson said the ultimate dream for the arts center is for it to be a place where youngsters can learn to be artists. "Everybody is not going to be a Tupac," she said. "Some people will find their talent is in lighting or sound engineering."
The arts center and museum are projects of the foundation, established in 1997 by Afeni Shakur to carry on her son's creative legacy. A former Black Panther who gave birth to Tupac in jail, she now lives in Stone Mountain. She is still releasing some of his work.
The foundation will host its first fundraiser to benefit the center in June to coincide with Tupac's June 16, 1971, birthday. Anderson said a specific date hasn't yet been picked.
She said "Athletes Honor 2PAC" was originally scheduled for Feb. 6 to coincide with the 2003 All-Star Game in Atlanta next month, but was postponed for a time that will be more convenient for NBA and NFL stars and many luminaries of track and field to attend. Anderson said that a number of high-profile athletes have said they will attend the $150- a-ticket fundraiser, which is expected to raise $160,000. The benefit will be open to the public and will feature entertainment.
"We've been surprised at the number of athletes saying Tupac has influenced their lives," she said. Anderson said the foundation's primary goal is to build the Stone Mountain arts center.
Phases two and three of the project will include a 350- to 500-seat theater, an artists' village and green space. Construction dates for those phases have yet to be determined, Anderson said.
For the 17th celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, South DeKalb residents can ponder the contributions of the slain civil rights leader in discussions; march in downtown Atlanta; spend a weekend listening to erudite speakers and learning about social activism in the King Historic District; or be entertained at a gala at the only high school in Georgia named for King.
The activities mark the 74th birthday of King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968. In 1963, the Baptist minister helped organize the March on Washington, at which he made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
In 1983, when President Reagan signed the King holiday into law, it marked the culmination of 15 years of lobbying. King was born on Jan. 15, 1929, but the holiday is observed annually on the third Monday in January.
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