CAMDEN — Girl Scouts and cookies are as synonymous as apple pie and ice cream. And Girl Scouts have been selling them for almost 100 years. Janet Corcoran scout leader of Troop 2117, Rockland, said they were at Reny’s Plaza March 22 to have a good time, sell some cookies and learn to be a small business. The girls said they were going to use the money for a trip to Boston and community service.

Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah, Ga., founded the Girl Scouts in 1912.

The first Girl Scout cookies were sold in December 1917 in Oklahoma. By 1936, 125 troops were having annual cookie drives based on cookie-selling models; most were sold at windows at utility companies. In recent years, there has been increased emphasis placed on safety. Girls are encouraged to sell cookies at cookie booths rather than door-to-door.

The first cookies were sugar cookies. Janet said the girls made a batch of the cookies, the original recipe, from the 1930s.

Approximately 70 percent of sales stay with the local council, with 15 to 20 percent of that going to the group doing the selling. The rest goes to the national council to help run summer camps, and pay for administrative and manufacturing costs.

Thin Mints are by far the most popular cookies, accounting for 25 percent of sales nationwide. Samoas are second with 19 percent of sales and Peanut Butter cookies are third with 16 percent of sales.

Janet said the troops will be selling cookies through next Saturday.

“We have eight different varieties to sell and you can also get gluten free cookies,” she said. “The gluten free are a mini chocolate chip on shortbread and they are really good.”

The business Girl Scout cookies is the largest girl -led enterprise, in the world raising more than $700 million for the 200 million boxes of cookies sold during the annual drive.