Girl Scouts persevere after community project vandalized in Solana Beach

By Karen Billing | KarenB@rsfreview.com | The San Diego Union-Tribune

A local Girl Scout troop in Solana Beach has learned a true lesson in resilience after their community beautification project was vandalized, twice.

Girl Scout Troop 3143 had spent a year working with the City of Solana Beach and the Public Arts Commission to paint six utility boxes on San Andres and Highland Drive. The boxes at the top of the intersection near the golf course had become an eyesore, covered in graffiti and stickers.

The troop is made up of six Girl Scouts, all rising high school seniors from Torrey Pines High School, Canyon Crest Academy and San Dieguito Academy, finishing up their last year of scouting. The young women have been together as a troop since they were first graders and this project was part of a scout Journey experience, which they had hoped to finish before pursuing their Gold Awards, the highest honor a Girl Scout can achieve.

Troop leader Catherine Barnes said when they began working on the project back in February, neighbors would stop and talk to the girls and seemed happy they were out there. There are strict requirements about the type of paint that must be used so it took quite a long time to prime the boxes and start tracing out the artwork, coordinating around six busy high school students’ schedules.

The artwork was first vandalized at the end of April, spray-painted white just as they were about to finish. The troop tried to recover and begin the artwork again, but at the end of May the boxes were covered in black which made it difficult to continue. They were low on funds after spending all of their cookie sales money on the project.

“The artwork illustrates kindness, inclusion and equality, the idea that girls can do anything,” Barnes said of the art that never really got a chance to make it onto the boxes. “To have that kind of a message be stifled, I think is what bothers everybody.”

The city and its utilities department is handling the acts of vandalism, working with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. The Girl Scouts paused the project as they tried to figure out what to do next.

“They took their time and thought about it and decided that they didn’t want to walk away from the project,” Barnes said. “They didn’t want whoever did this to have the last word.”

The girls were back in front of the Public Arts Commission in June—they have been very encouraging of the project moving forward. The city has to strip the boxes of the black paint and once they are cleaned up the Girl Scouts can try again. The plan is to have a simpler design, something that can be done over one weekend.

Barnes said she admires the troop’s resilience to keep going.

“They don’t want to give up, they feel that their message is important and they want it to get out there,” Barnes said. “This is their last project together and they don’t want it to end like this. They want to get the last say and share something positive with the community.”