Like any good friends, Kim Randle and Dorian Gonzales have gone
through a lot together. Engagements and pregnancies, losing jobs
and finding new ones, good times and bad
– the pair have been through it all.
Tres Pinos – Like any good friends, Kim Randle and Dorian Gonzales have gone through a lot together. Engagements and pregnancies, losing jobs and finding new ones, good times and bad – the pair have been through it all.
So when Randle decided three years ago to save Girl Scout/Brownie Troop 3502 in Tres Pinos from folding, she knew exactly who to call on for help.
“I was scared to take this on, and I knew she’d be there to back me up,” said Randle, who, along with Gonzales, has been the leader of Troop 3502 since 2002. “I had no idea what I was doing, so I asked Dorian to help me.”
Randle’s oldest daughter, Taylor, joined the troop as a first-grader in 2001, and Randle volunteered at many of the meetings. At the end of that year, the group’s leader informed parents that she was moving out of town. No one offered to take over, which would have meant disbanding the group and forcing girls who wanted to stay active to find an existing troop in Hollister.
When she realized that the troop was going to disband without a leader, Randle decided she would go ahead and step to the plate.
“I had no intention of doing so, but the whole thing was going to stop,” Randle said. “It was my daughter’s first year, and the girls were all having so much fun. There was no one else, so I figured I’d just jump in, get my feet wet and go for it. I just couldn’t see the girls in the troop being let down.”
Naturally, the novice leader was going to need some help, so she turned to someone she knew she could count on – Gonzales, who had been a troop leader herself when her daughter had been a Girl Scout several years ago.
“Girl Scouts meant a lot to me as a girl, and I still felt like I had a lot to give,” Gonzales said. “It’s so important to give back, and there are never enough adults to help out. I really felt Taylor deserved the same opportunity I had, and once I met all the other girls, I wanted them to have that opportunity also.”
Gonzales said she feels “lucky” to have had such good experiences as a girl scout, and learned many important skills such as camping and community service that she felt should be passed on. So when Randle asked her to help out, she jumped at the chance.
“I felt obligated, kind of like a pay-it-forward deal,” Gonzales said. “Someone did it for me, and I felt I needed to do it for someone else. I had an awesome leader, (Hollister resident) Virginia Shaw, and I thought if I could do half as much for our girls as she did for me…well, I just thought of how lucky I had been and I wanted our girls to be able to have that.”
When they first took over Troop 3502, there was about a half-dozen girls involved; today, the troop is a combined Brownie/Junior Girl Scout group of 23 girls ranging in ages from six to 12. Randle is in charge of the younger girls, the Brownies, while Gonzales handles the Junior Girl Scouts. The troop has grown so large that recently Randle had to turn away three interested girls.
“These girls make me proud over and over again,” Randle said. “Their community service commitment is awesome. They collect bags and food for Community Pantry, and have donated dolls and blankets to the Angel Babies project. They made gingerbread houses at Christmas and Valentine cards for patients in local rest homes. They’ve donated cookies each year, this year to the (United States) troops over in Iraq. They are amazing.”
Best “pals” for 21 years, Randle and Gonzales first met when the allergist Gonzales was a receptionist for moved into a building where Randle worked as a dental assistant. Both were recently engaged, and when Gonzales found out that Randle had just moved to Hollister, she took her new friend under her wing.
“She just walked in and took care of me,” laughs Randle. “She would take me places with her, introduce me to her friends and show me around. We go to the movies together, go out to dinner; we even get our hair cut at the same time. We have just really been there for each other when our families need each other. She’s a good friend with a heart of gold.”
Gonzales echoes the sentiment, saying, “Kim opens her heart to you, without any questions. You just want to do for her all the wonderful things that she does for you.”
In the meantime, in addition to movie and dinner nights, the two friends and co-leaders plan to continue leading the troop into the future, Randle said.
“Right now, it’s not in my cards to stop,” she said. “It’s more time than I ever expected; I was not told how much time was involved for things like preparation or training. But there are no regrets. I have enjoyed watching the girls grow.”
Laurie Castaneda writes Local Stories for the Free Lance every Wednesday.
