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September 14, 2008

Ralston completes Eagle Scout project

There’s no downside to it.”

These are the wise words that 14-year-old, boy scout Bart Ralston, of Sharon, had to share about community service after recently completing his Eagle Scout project.

“You can’t go wrong,” he said, noting that helping others is “always a good thing.”

And while relief may be the primary emotion that Ralston is experiencing now that the 167 man-hour project is completed, he also noted that he is happy to know that all the work he and his project helpers did may save somebody’s life.

Ralston’s project was repairing public storm shelters in Fort Supply and Buffalo to make them habitable and safe for use by community members or travelers.

“Before that they didn’t really have any place to go,” Ralston said.

For the Fort Supply shelter, he noted that he and a team of helpers led by him “rebuilt the door, replaced the threshold and painted it inside.”

The work done at the Buffalo shelter was similar, except for replacing the door, he said.

The purpose of the project, which is an essential step in any boy scout’s application for Eagle Scout, is mainly two-fold.

The first purpose is “so that they know they need to do community service in their everyday life,” Ralston said.

The second is to develop valuable leadership skills, of which Ralston said he learned many.

For instance, Ralston learned a lot about organization as he realized the hardest part about his project was “getting started, because you have to get everything planned” from supplies to personnel.

When it comes to personnel, Ralston noted that he actually learned a very valuable lesson about volunteer labor.

“You have to call a lot more scouts than you actually want to go, because most won’t show up,” he said.

The project also helped Ralston realize the dangers of procrastination. “It helped me learn to get my work done,” he said.

But perhaps one of the most important leadership lessons Ralston learned was goal-setting.

He noted that completing the project and attaining the level of Eagle Scout has been “one of my bigger goals so far.”

By setting and then achieving his Eagle Scout goal, Ralston knew it would help him in reaching future goals and open up future opportunities.

“It can help me get into college,” he said. “And if I decide to join the military, it will put me one step ahead of everyone else.”

Ralston will have to be interviewed by a review board to discuss his project and his overall scouting experience before he is officially promoted to Eagle Scout, but his father Jeff Ralston is confident that he will receive the honor.

“I’m very proud of him,” Jeff Ralston said of his son. “He’s a good kid.”

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