 | | | From left, back row: Joe Holden, Evan Groover, Justin Steuber; middle row: Gregory Bontemps, David Furtado, Harrison Naton, Kody Kiefer Wedell, Nathaniel Evaristo; front: Connor Tetzloff Photo provided
| | | | | | Lafayette Boy Scout Troop 204 will honor nine young men who achieved the Eagle Scout Award - the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America - April 28 at the Lafayette Orinda Presbyterian Church. The Eagle Scout Class of 2012 completed a variety of projects that benefited underprivileged children and disabled adults, beautifying parks, reaching out to our soldiers overseas and helping children in Africa.
Acalanes High School juniors Gregory Bontemps, Nathaniel Evaristo, Evan Groover, and Justin Stueber each completed a variety of projects that benefited the community: Bontemps planned and executed a week long summer day camp for the children of Garden Park Apartments in Pleasant Hill; Evaristo collected thousands of individual sized items such as toiletries, food, personal items, books, and comfort items that were then packaged and sent to our troops overseas through the Blue Star Moms organization; Groover coordinated a drive to collect used musical instruments which were donated to benefit the underfunded music program at Westlake Middle School in Oakland; And Steuber collected unwanted bicycles, repaired them, and delivered 31 bikes to Trips for Kids, a Marin organization that takes inner city kids on bike exursions.
Campolindo High School juniors David Furtado, Joseph MacLeod Holden, and Harrison Naton worked diligently on projects as well: Furtado collected over 500 pairs of shoes and delivered them to Mother of Peace Orphanage in Zimbabwe as part of the high school mission trip sponsored by Lafayette Orinda Presbyterian Church. MacLeod Holden coordinated a six-month-long collection campaign of used Lamorinda Soccer uniforms to donate to Fund-a-Field, a Bay Area organization run by high school students who yearly visit Africa, and provide impoverished kids with uniforms. And Naton built a fence at Diablo Foothills Regional Park in Walnut Creek to help to keep cars off of hiking and equestrians trails. This helps the rangers, who are constantly repairing the trails due to illegal off-road joy riders for their respective projects.
The nine scouts being honored (including San Ramon Valley High School junior Connor Tetzloff - who collected donated supplies to establish the production of organic dog treats for distribution and created a 26-page dog recipe book for George Miller Adult Services of Contra Costa ARC - and Monte Vista High School junior Kody Kiefer Wedell - who transformed a vacant hillside into a park-like setting at Alamo Elementary School in Alamo) have all been active in Troop 204 for at least five years. As part of becoming an Eagle Scout and particularly with their projects, each scout has had to clearly demonstrate leadership qualities and abilities.
Troop 204 has awarded this special honor to only 330 scouts since 1935.
|
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA