Girl Scouts revive service project along trail

A Bethel Park Girl Scout troop will replace two trees that were stolen in June from planters they had built on the Montour Trail.

Valery Keibler, leader of the 19 girls in Troop 229, said Thursday she plans to select trees to plant Wednesday that won't be as attractive to the thief or thieves who took the original Japanese maples, valued at $90 each.

Three girls in the troop planned the planters as a community service project for their leadership award. The entire troop helped build them on the trail at Limestone Drive in late May.

The trees were taken before the troop could put up plaques identifying their work.

'It's been an unpredictable learning experience for our girls,' Keibler said. 'The girls are not as surprised as you might expect young children to be. I think they've all probably been victims of some sort of small theft.'

Both trees are believed to have been stolen over a Friday night. The first tree was taken the night of June 15 and the second a week later the night of June 22.

'The first one really caught everybody off guard,' Keibler said. 'The girls were quite disappointed that their work wasn't appreciated.'

Keibler said the Japanese maples were selected with resistance to wind and deer in mind. 'We didn't think about a vandal,' she said.

Brentwood Bank offered to pay the $400 cost of the project. Tom Bailey, president of Brentwood Bank, said Thursday the bank would also pay for the replacement trees.

'I don't know if we'll do it a third time if they get stolen,' he said.

Bill Capp, who oversees plantings on the trail for the Friends of the Montour Trail in Bethel Park, said he suspects the trees were taken by adults. Children, he said, would have pulled the trees out of the ground and left them somewhere on or near the trail to be found. Searches of the trail in that area have failed to find the trees.

'I believe somebody took them because they wanted them in their yard. They were nice trees,' he said. 'There are other shrubs there not as valuable and they left them all.'

Keibler said the girls, who are in first through seventh grades, have made note of every Japanese maple they've seen since the thefts.

'They are keenly aware the trees are probably in someone's yard,' she said.

Peter Kohnke, president of the Friends of the Montour Trail, said he found the whole situation disappointing.

'People are trying to do good things and then somebody messes it up,' he said.

Brian C. Rittmeyer can be reached at brittmeyer@tribweb.com or at (412) 306-4540.