In 1978, a group of 30 Girl Scouts – from various troops around the Hampton Roads area – took out for a trip of a lifetime.

The Wider Opportunities program, which was sponsored by the now Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast, offered an “England Bound” trip, which sent local girl scouts for a three week trek around the countryside of England, Greater London and through the breathtaking Alps in Switzerland.

Two of those lucky ones selected to participate were Lynn Leccese, a then 18-year-old girl scout who taken part in a similar trip in Wyoming the year before, and Sheila Escajeda-Adams, a 23-year-old scouting veteran who was serving as a chaperone on the trip.

“They really were incredible opportunities for girls to go places,” Leccese said.

As most trips with dozens of teenage girls tend to do, the weeks were filled with laughs, adventures and great bonds of friendship to last the years.

But, life – as it, as well, tends to do – took over.  One by one, these traveling Scouts graduated, got married, moved away, had children, launched careers of their own and separated from the pack.

However, their trip would bring them back together – more than three decades later. The Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast, in partnership with the Francis Land House in Virginia Beach, ran an exhibit entitled, “Girl Scout Travel Destinations,” which showcased the many travel opportunities offered to girls by the Girl Scouts in the 1970s and 1980s.

As the 35^th anniversary of the trip was looming, members of the 1978 England Bound trip orchestrated a reunion to check out the exhibit together.

A dozen of the 1978 trip’s participants showed up at the reunion, including Leccese and Escajeda-Adams, who – once there – made a discovery: not only were both women still living in the area, but both are teachers for Virginia Beach City Public Schools.

Even more striking, Escajeda-Adams teaches art at Christopher Farms Elementary and Leccese teaches math at Kellam High School, meaning the women have been teaching less than a mile apart from each other for years.

“How funny is it that our schools are so close,” Escajeda-Adams said.

Given that Christopher Farms is a feeder school to Kellam, former students of Escajeda-Adams’s were more than likely also students of Leccese’s.  Escajeda-Adams also pointed out that Kellam students routinely come back and tutor at the elementary school  – meaning it was possible Leccese’s students were back helping Escajeda-Adams’s current students.

Indeed, the friendship circle of the Girl Scouts never does break.

Now, the women are planning to keep in touch not just with each other – but the rest of the England Bound gang. And, both say they are thankful to have been a part of such a worthwhile adventure.

“You could go and have fun and get something out of what you were doing without it having to be a party,” Leccese said. “Every single one would say it influenced how we turned out…It does make you who you are.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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