Seth's Eagle Project Status . . . COMPLETE!

Seth made it perfectly clear, "I'm not doing anything with digging!" The last few Eagle Projects he helped out on involved lots and lots of digging. Digging that was needed for electrical lines at a park, digging for play equipment at another nearby park . . . digging, digging, DIGGING! Seth knew exactly what he DID NOT want to do for his Eagle Project. So, in an effort to find something that he DID want to do, he asked his principal at school if he had any ideas. Well, he did. In fact, he has quite a few ideas involving getting all the classroom prepared for an emergency lock down. The principals plan includes a porta-potty, food and water, and first-aid kits in each of the 50 classrooms. Seth took on putting together the first-aid kits.

Seth had to do some research (with the help of Carp) to figure out how much it would cost to put a first-aid kit in each classroom. At $15.00 a kit, Seth had to raise $750.00. That was no small feat! So, during SEP conferences in October, Seth set up tables with information about what his Eagle Project was and how it benefited his school. He was given permission to ask for donations. He made over $400.00 in the two nights he and Carson camped out at the entrances upstairs and downstairs at the school.

Seth greeted the parents and students that entered the junior high upstairs. I sat with Seth and was entirely impressed with his sales pitch. He knew what his goal was and what he talking about!

Carson manned a booth downstairs. He was really helpful!

Seth received additional donations from family members and friends. He also wrote letters to nearby businesses and received gift cards from Walmart and Costco. It took him a while, but by December he was ready to place orders for the supplies. He and his Dad went through information on the internet and our school district catalogue and placed the orders with the help from a sweetheart of a finance gal at the junior high. (Kudos to K'Ann! You are a gem!) He also used the gift cards to purchase items at Walmart. Some of the stuff was on back order from the district. We got the last of the stuff a couple weeks ago. Seth was set. He had to iron out a plan on how to get the kits put together.

This last weekend Seth had the kids separate the cotton swabs into snack baggies in preparation for his project on Tuesday. On Tuesday we set up tables and with the help of friends and scout leaders, Seth ended up with 50 wonderful first aid kits.

The most time consuming part was putting a variety band-aids, wipes, tweezers and tongue depressers in baseball card holders. The baseball card holders allow the small items to stay separated and easy to access.

Lots of people showed up to help!

The end product: 50 first-aid kits ready to go in each classroom at Seth's school.

There might be some of you out there wondering why Seth didn't just buy a pre-made first-aid kit instead of going through all the trouble to plan the contents of each kit, ordering each item, prepping the to show volunteers how he wanted to put them together, and then actually putting them together. Yeah, it would have been quicker. Yeah, it would have been easier. BUT - what would Seth have learned? That's why this process is often refered to "earning his Eagle Scout Award." He had to go through all those steps to "earn" it.