The Rockville case on Sunday caused a stir on social media and brought to mind the childhood song: Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?

But in this caper, the thief left the cookies and stole a Girl Scout troop’s box of cash instead.

Lidia Soto-Harmon, chief executive of the Girl Scouts Nation’s Capital council for the D.C. region, said two girls and two adults from a troop in Montgomery County were selling Girl Scout cookies Sunday afternoon at a booth outside a Safeway store on in the 14900 block of Shady Grove Road in Rockville when the theft happened. She said there was about $100 in the box.

Lauren Ivey, a Montgomery County police spokeswoman, said in an email that a woman called authorities Sunday just before 2 p.m. and told police that while she and her child were selling cookies at a table, she noticed a man sitting on a bench nearby for about 15 to 20 minutes. At one point, he walked up to the cookie booth and “grabbed the cash box and ran away,” Ivey said. Officers searched the area for the man and tried to find surveillance video of him leaving the scene.

“You would think on a Sunday afternoon this wouldn’t happen, but we can’t control certain things and unfortunately these things sometimes do happen,” said Soto-Harmon, who represents 76,000 girl and adult members of the Girl Scouts in the District, West Virginia, Virginia and Maryland.

“I think there’s something that tugs on the hearts of people when they see there are girls out there trying to fund their dreams, and when something like this happens, it really upsets people.”

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Girl Scout troops sell cookies annually at preapproved spots, usually outside grocery stores or big box shops or other businesses where there’s heavy foot traffic, plus well lit areas and often security cameras. Girl Scouts officials choose the sites, which number 16,000 in the region under Soto-Harmon, and work out agreements with the businesses to set up a cookie booth.

Selling cookies is meant as a way to teach girls certain skills, including how to manage money, deal with people and set goals. The money raised from the cookie sales goes toward a range of expenses from running summer camps to providing scholarships for girls to attend activities, plus paying for staff and supplies to help troops doing community service projects or making charitable donations.

Thefts at cookie booths are not common, Girl Scout officials said, but they have happened.

In 2020, someone stole more than $1,000 from Girl Scouts selling at a spot in Northeast Washington, according to WUSA9. And there was another cash theft last month as a troop sold cookies in Dallas.

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Officials with the Girl Scouts said they repeatedly remind troop leaders and adult volunteers to make sure they’re closely watching their cookie booths at all times, and in light of the recent theft, Soto-Harmon said they’ve doubled down on ensuring troop leaders have their safety reminders.

Soto-Harmon said the troop would not have to repay the stolen money, and she encouraged the public to go support them, as they’ll be back selling their cookies this weekend at the Safeway. She wouldn’t say which troop number had their money stolen because she said the girls had gone through enough already.

“It’s a hard thing to explain to kids,” Soto-Harmon said of the theft. “But we want our girls and people to remember to behave with kindness and compassion.”