A sisterhood between Girl Scouts is forged by cookies and a lost Hello Kitty purse

After days selling Girl Scout cookies door-to-door, 9-year-old Juliana Rozanski had about $150 stuffed in her tiny Hello Kitty purse.

She knocked on another six doors Monday evening in Glendale’s Royal Canyon neighborhood before she, her dad and her younger sister, Tessa, noticed the bag was missing.

When they traced their steps to where they’d last used it, they found nothing.

“I felt really, really, really sad,” said Juliana, who’d been inspired to sell after watching the Oscars, where a group of Girl Scouts sold thousands of dollars worth of cookies to attendees.

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On the ride home, the girls shed a lot of tears.

“I was crushed, too,” said their father, Rod. “I couldn’t believe we had lost it.”

But thanks to the kindness of strangers — and a touch of serendipity — the following 48 hours would be among the most joyful.

Rozanski was skeptical, but after his daughter lost her purse, she had an idea to post fliers in the area with her name and phone number.

Around the same time, Sharla Bohman and her daughter Maddie, 14, were walking in the neighborhood when they stumbled upon a Hello Kitty purse in the street.

Maddie, a senior Girl Scout who’s sold Thin Mints and Samoas for seven years, saw the wad of singles in the purse, and she knew:

It had to be cookie money.

When Sharla Bohman posted a note about what she’d found on a neighborhood social networking site, she told herself that if no one responded in 48 hours, she’d take the purse to the police station.

But the following morning, another neighbor had responded to Bohman with a photo of Juliana’s flier.

Meanwhile, Rozanski had already reported the loss to police.

Glendale dispatcher Sally Chong, who answered the call, was so touched by the story that she corralled her co-workers — a couple dozen police officers and dispatchers — to donate a few dollars each for Juliana.

On Tuesday, Chong and two police officers delivered $165, along with a Hello Kitty card, to Juliana’s home.

“I got so excited,” said Juliana, who subsequently asked her dad exactly what police did, because she’d always thought their job was “chasing bad guys.”

“We’ve just been completely blown away by the generosity of the community,” Rozanski said.

On Thursday evening, Juliana, clad in her Brownie uniform, met Maddie, who wore her Girl Scout sash, to get her bag back. Maddie received a couple boxes of cookies in return.

By the end of the evening, they’d also swapped phone numbers.

Maddie said she’d just gotten her baby-sitting license, and the Rozanskis may be in the market for a sitter.

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Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @atchek

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