Eagle Project - Done!

Young son's Eagle project is finally done!  For anyone who stumbled on this blog and don't know the back story on his Eagle project here goes:   With less than six months left before his 18th birthday young son decided that he needed to start working on a project to obtain his Eagle rank.  The usual types of projects such as improving landscaping at a school or building park benches just didn't appeal to him.  I suggested something to aid the Marines in Afghanistan as I serve with a warrant officer whose son is currently in Afghanistan.  Craig decided to design a comfort kit contained in a gallon ziplock bag for 200 Marines (BTW Ziplock brand bags are worthless.  Most of the zippers didn't work.  Get Hefty brand bags instead).  Each kit would have a paperback book, pair of crew socks, bag of beef jerky, bag of sunflower seeds, pack of chewing gum, pack of tic-tacs, small tube of toothpaste, dental floss, tube of chapstick, and a 4 pack of AA batteries.  He estimated his capital requirement to be $4,500 for supplies and shipping.  His project advisor put him over many hurdles to get everything just right and with only about three months left, turned him loose to start the project.  Not much time!

He started his fundraising and approached many local businesses most of which either gave only $10 or sent him on his way empty handed.  Kudos to Trader Joe's for a contribution of $50!   He went to a VFW post and received $380 from them!   The Knights of Columbus provided $250.  Yay Knights!  Relatives and friends contributed a lot of cash too.  He set up at two different grocery stores and gave shoppers a list of the items that he needed and asked them to buy just one of them.  The outpouring of support from the community was amazing!   With six weeks to go he had the items and enough cash to buy what hadn't been donated.  He and the Missus went shopping and cleaned the grocery stores out of beef jerky and sunflower seeds.  The big day came for packaging and packing the kits into cartons for shipping.  Three hours later all was finished.  A week later young son and your truly loaded up the Jeep with 480 lbs of kits and drove to the donation point for shipping to Afghanistan.  Two weeks after that the project book was delivered to the council office for review and approval.  Almost done!  Now young son will have his board of review.  Then he will be an Eagle scout.  Yay!!

Young son addressing one of the work crews at the Grouch's place of employment do ask for help with the project.  The employees of the city were very generous with donations of both goods and money.

Young son soliciting outside one of the grocery stores.  Even though I am an Army guy through and through, helping the Marines was a worthy thing to do.

The crew after making the packages and the boxes ready for shipping.  Twenty cartons and 480 lbs of goods!