FITCHBURG — In 1990, a group of Girl Scouts and their leaders buried something under what turned into the middle picnic table of the Funtasia playground at 44 Wanoosnoc Road.

The playground between the state swimming pool and the former home of the FLLAC (now Keystone) Educational Collaborative was taken down several years ago. The only remaining signs are a layer of gravel and a painted fence post amid the overgrowth.

But the Girl Scouts’ memento was still there.

About a dozen people from the now-defunct Juniors Troop 758 gathered on May 20, 2018, shovels at the ready, to see if they could find that memento. But despite their work, it remained hidden.

On Thursday morning, several of them returned with maps and memories in hand to try again. They were joined by a crew from the Fitchburg Department of Public Works with shovels, magnetic locating equipment and a backhoe.

After more than an hour of plotting and digging, there it was: The Girl Scouts’ time capsule, encased in a 32-year-old water dispenser bottle. The neck was visible first, topped with a piece of duct tape and what looked like a laundry detergent bottle cap.

A few people cheered at the news and eagerly waited for the rest of the time capsule to emerge.

While there was disappointment that water had gotten in, affecting the state of some of the items inside, the former Scouts and their co-leaders were glad to again see what was inside.

They found the newspaper with notes from the Scouts wrapped inside, the bottle of correction fluid, the empty can of Canada Dry Lemonade Diet Ginger Ale, the button from the 1990 Fitchburg Earth Day cleanup, the highlighter and the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” VHS cassette tape, and what appeared to be a lottery scratch ticket.

As she held the items from the time capsule in a plastic car mat, former Troop 758 co-leader Norma Holmes said with a laugh she felt “disbelief.”

“It’s a relief to finally find it,” co-leader Mary Leslie added. “We dug ourselves four years ago, and with the help of the city we were able to get it done this time, so thank you, the City of Fitchburg.”