After selling Girl Scout cookies all day in a Glendale neighborhood, 9-year-old Juliana Rozanski was devastated after realizing she had lost her Hello Kitty purse containing the $165 she had collected.
“It was really tough because I had a lot of money I worked for,” Juliana Rozanski said.
The Glendale girl’s father called police to report the missing purse.
He spoke with dispatcher Sally Chong, who was so touched by the story that she started a campaign to collect money from other dispatchers and officers on her team, according to Tahnee Lightfoot with the Glendale Police Department.
“I just thought about how much she must have cried because she lost that money,” Chong said. “So, I just sent a message out … and it was amazing the response I got.”
After raising $165, Chong and two officers delivered the money and a Hello Kitty card to Juliana at her home, Lightfoot said.
What Chong didn’t know was that another young girl had found the purse while walking in the neighborhood.
Maddie Bohman, a former Girl Scout, was able to figure out what the money was for and managed to return it to Juliana.
“I’d been a Girl Scout for like seven years and you kind of start to recognize the change and the money that starts to go on … and I had a feeling,” Bohman said.
On Monday night, Juliana, Maddie and a group of Girl Scouts delivered $160 worth of cookies to the team of dispatchers and officers who generously donated their money to help out.