Eagles Honored for Bettering Montville

Being an Eagle Scout is more than wearing a uniform and camping.

As several local Eagle Scouts proved recently, it means making a difference in the community in which you, or others, live to benefit residents. Andrew Kim, Kevin Lindert and Alexander Novis were honored by the Montville Township Board of Education on Oct. 16 for earning their Eagle Scout awards and completing projects around Montville, including renovating school district tennis courts, beautifying the Montville dog park and more.

As his Eagle project, Lindert renovated a room at the high school that was previously used for storage, transforming it into a college resource center. He installed new carpeting and desks, with help from 35 fellow scouts, and also painted the school nurse's office with money generated from donations. The idea behind the college resource center is to allow students to meet with representatives from colleges and universities for informational sessions.  

The Eagles were recently honored at an awards ceremony and Montville Township Board of Education President Dr. Karen Cortellino was in attendance.

"It's always an amazing event to attend because it's very hard to become an Eagle Scout," Cortellino said.

She noted that many of the Scouts begin working toward the honor in kindergarten and 21 merit badges are required to reach the milestone, many of which have multiple components.

"Achieving the rank is really a culmination of a young man's life's work, even though they're still very young, so we should be very proud of all the Eagles in our district and throughout our state, throughout the nation and throughout the world," she said.

Were you impacted by one of the Eagle Scouts' projects? Share your experience in the comments.