Local Scouts Deliver Hurricane Relief To Staten Island

The following was provided by Boy Scout Troop 48 Scoutmaster Gordon Forrest of Lynnfield: 

Over the past week, Boy Scout Troop 48 Lynnfield, along with our friends from the Lynnfield Girl Scouts and Boy Scout Troop 750 North Reading and Boy Scout Troop 119 Peabody, staffed a donation trailer at the Lynnfield Middle School for over 160 man hours during the week, gathering donated items for those impacted by Hurricane Sandy in Staten Island, NY.

This past Saturday, November 17, nine of our older Scouts, myself and two other dads, gathered early and traveled to the Calvary Presbyterian Church on Staten Island where we met with representatives from Boy Scout Troop 19.

Our tractor trailer was two hours late in arriving to the church, but fueled by pizza and Coca Cola, our Scouts sprang in to action and had the entire trailer emptied in to the church in 75 minutes.

As we wrapped up unloading the trailer on Saturday afternoon, the gentleman who is the building superintendent at the Calvary Church asked me, "Why did you do this?", gesturing to the piles of donated materials now crowding his church basement. I simply replied, "Because we could."

Our hosts from Troop 19 then took us on a tour of some of the devastated neighborhoods and we were able to see the distribution area which our donated supplies will replenish this week. The scenes from Staten Island were very sobering and I think all of us realize how important the work that we did this past week really is.

Waite Phillips, one of America's greatest philanthropists during the 1900s, and the man who donated the land that became Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, once said, "We should all realize that every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation, every position a duty, and that the most effective sermon is expressed in deeds instead of words."