It's a story that might make one believe in guardian angels. Atleast that's
how a local girl scout feels, after a good samaritan returned some of her most
valued possessions, which were stolen years ago.
Bonnie Kiser has been a girl scout for half a century. And it became her
labor of love to collect her badges of honor...until they were stolen from her.
Lemor Abrams has this amazing story of how they were found and returned.
If there were a merit badge for hero, this good samaritan would definitely
get one. Instead, all he wanted to do was reunite a girl scout with her
collectibles...two years after they were stolen.
Between the two of them, Bonnie Kiser and her daughter...they'd collected
enough girl scout memorabilia over fifty years to have their own display in a
museum.
But a couple years ago, her car was stolen, with her patches, photos, and
letters inside. Police later found the car...burnt to a crisp.
"I figured it was gone... you know how you kinna look at pictures and
say...and just a matter of concentrating on replacing my stuff," she said.
Fast forward two years, after accepting dozens of donations, she took a call
from her local girl scouts. They had the originals...
"It's like finding an old friend. And I said, I was just on the phone with an
old friend's saying... ok I still need this I still need that," she said.
She was reunited with her stuff, but no the man who returned it all...until
he walked in, in the middle of our interview.
"Are you bonnie?, he asked."
"Yes... it's my collection that you had!, she said."
John Torres found her boxes dumped near his construction site, and stored
them in his garage for two years.
"It looked old, especially the pictures..they were in camp... A lot of them
dated from 1930s 36 on up...so they had to belong to somebody," he said.
Finally, last month...he passed by a girl scout stand on his way into the
grocery store, and asked what he should do with the boxes.
The rest...history...quite literally.
Bonnie is now a historian for a the Girl Scouts of Central California... and
has her own story for the history books.