GALVESTON, Texas — We all know how bad it feels when hard work goes to waste, but one Girl Scout troop from Galveston is getting the police involved to help recover the thousands of dollars they lost.
Troop parents said they believe between $10,000 to $15,000 is missing.
"All of our money that our girls had saved since Kindergarten is now gone," troop leader Kori Zaba said.
Zaba's daughter is part of the group that had been saving up since elementary school. They were planning to take a big trip to celebrate all the years of hard work but something fishy happened when they went to check on their money.
"The funds are not there to be able to do that," she said.
They were forced to cancel the trip, for now, after finding out the account that was holding their money had been closed by the previous leadership team last summer.
Now, they're selling cookies every day to try to make up for what they lost.
"We feel like whoever is responsible for this needs to be held accountable for what they've done to these girls," Zaba said.
She said that hasn't happened, though. The troop was disbanded and they had to create a new one and file a police report.
"Since we had no access to any of the bank records or to any of the information. We didn't have any way to prove who was responsible for this," Zaba said.
Parents like Heather Smith-Ward said they feel like their kids were robbed.
"When you find out that all the money they worked for years to earn for this final trip is just gone, like, no trace of it, not a penny left, it's kind of disheartening," Smith-Ward said.
Heather Smith-Ward's daughter feels the same way.
"She's upset about it, to say the least," Smith-Ward said.
While it's unclear exactly how much money is missing, the troop wants it back. The teens aren't backing down on their cookie sales this year.
"They decided that they're going to work really hard in order to raise as many as much money as they can in these last couple years so they can still do something special," Zaba said.
Galveston police said it's an active case.
The Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council said they're working with the previous troop leaders to resolve the issue. Here's a statement from them:
"Our council is actively working with the troop leaders involved to resolve this issue. The girls from troop 137004 have been transferred to their new troop under new leadership while our council works with the volunteers involved from the previous troop to resolve the financial discrepancy."