52 The Queens Courier • buzz • march 20, 2014 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com Queens’ Cookie Queen BY CRISTABELLE TUMOLA ctumola@queenscourier.com @CristabelleT This Queens Girl Scout is one smart cookie. Springfield Gardens seventh-grader Najah Lorde more than doubled her cookie sales from last year to become the top seller in the city with 2,833 boxes. Najah, 12, has been selling cookies since she joined the Girl Scouts in second grade, but didn’t surpass the 1,000 mark until 2013 when she sold 1,111 boxes. That year, she was bested by Upper West Side resident Olivia Cranshaw by about 700 boxes. Cranshaw set a goal of selling more than 2,000 this year. She exceeded that number by 141, but Najah had the right ingredients for a win. “I was running and screaming all over the house,” Najah said, describing the moment she found out she was the cookie champ. Each Girl Scout that sells more than 1,000 boxes receives all the prizes offered, including a Nintendo Wii and a Sephora gift card. “If you are the top seller you just win bragging rights,” Najah said. “She’s very competitive,” Najah’s father Donovan Lorde said. “I always say I have to keep my sneakers on with Najah because she always keeps me running,” her mother, DeAnne Lorde said. Najah, a member of Troop 4287, claimed she had no special strategy, but her father said she did have a plan, she just didn’t realize it. He said she made a list of the people she wanted to call and even took his and his wife’s phones to look for potential buyers. Using her networking skills, the preteen urged her contacts to reach out to others. She also sold the baked goods at her school, Divine Wisdom Catholic Academy in Douglaston, her church, the Greater Allen Cathedral of New York, and her parents’ workplace, SUNY Downstate Medical Center. “When we tallied up the numbers and we saw 2,833, we were like, ‘Wow that is a lot of boxes,’” Donovan said. Najah is aiming for another win next year by selling at least 3,000 boxes. Though her parents are supportive of her ambitions, they admit the goal makes them somewhat anxious. On Saturday, March 15, the family needed to rent a U-Haul truck to pick up the boxes before handing them out to the purchasers. “My head is starting to hurt just thinking about next year’s goal,” Najah’s mother said. “When we went to pick up the cookies her pile of cookies took up half the wall.” -With additional reporting by Katelyn Di Salvo Najah Lorde surrounded by boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the U-Haul truck her family had to rent to pick them up. THE COURIER/Photo by Katelyn Di Salvo Enjoy Weeknight Dining at Bourbon Street! Monday Night Steak and Ale $23.95 Tuesday Night New Orleans Clambake $23.95 Wednesday Night All You Can Eat BBQ $23.95 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������ New York Post Bourbon Street 40-12 Bell Boulevard, Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-2200
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