School supply giveaway helps Scout earn Eagle status
Boy Scouts give away bags of school supplies Monday as part of Francisco Guerra Campos’ Eagle Scout project. From left: Tucker Hardy, Jonathan Ostler, Guerra Campos, Colby Ostler, Parker Hardy and James Hardy.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
MOSES LAKE — A lot of work went into the bags of school supplies that were being given away at the Boys & Girls Club in Moses Lake on Monday.
“I went around town with some of the other Boy Scouts in Troop 75 asking for donations at EDUBS C/S and B’s Barbershop and other places downtown,” said Francisco Guerra Campos, 17, of Moses Lake. “And a few days later The Home Depot lent us some boxes that we could set up at (businesses) to get donations from their customers … Some other people donated money, and we went to Walmart and bought the stuff with the donations.”
The giveaway is Guerra Campos’ Eagle Scout project, one of the steps toward achieving Scouting’s highest honor. Besides the project, to be an Eagle Scout, a scout must earn at least 21 merit badges – 13 in required areas and eight additional elective badges – as well as holding leadership positions in the troop, according to the Scouting America website. And all that has to be completed before his 18th birthday, which in Guerra Campos’ case is next spring.
“I have a few more merit badges to complete, but I wanted to get this done (and) take a few things off my shoulders (before school starts),” Guerra Campos said. “I’m in a bunch of other stuff and I’m going to be busy.”
Guerra Campos and nine friends started collecting supplies a month ago, he said, and came up with enough supplies to fill 123 brightly colored bags with school supplies for elementary school students.
“They have crayons, they have markers,” Guerra Campos said. “We put in some books because those were donated. There are composition books and notebooks. There’s also a folder and some pencils and glue sticks and a ruler.”
The bags were donated by a family friend, he said. His mom, Erika Campos, drove the bags to the Boys & Girls Club to be distributed.
“They all do an amazing job in Boy Scouts,” she said. “They do a lot of work.”
One of the scouts helping Guerra Campos has an Eagle project of his own he’s working on. James Hardy, who has been close with Guerra Campos since the two were Cub Scouts together, is collecting items to make sensory boxes for special needs students at Larson Heights Elementary School, he said.
“(Each box) has things for the kids to de-stress and feel more calm and at home when they’re in a stressful school environment,” Hardy said. “Fidgets, therapeutics, toys like that … I myself have autism, so it’s close to home. I really want to contribute to the people who have helped me.”