15-Year Old Life Scout, Matt Leary, Leads Community Service Project

 Cross-published In The Southington Citizen

Matt Leary, Life Scout

Boy Scouts of America: For God, Country, Self & Others

A breath of positive news inspires a needed ray of hope for good citizenship and patriotism. Such is the stuff of this story of a community service project and a group of Boy Scouts led by a Southington boy of 15.

Established more than a hundred years ago, the Boy Scouts of America is part of a global non-profit endeavor that promotes virtues such as character, citizenship and fitness in youngsters. The Scout Oath declares the central duties to God, Country, Self and others. Service projects undertaken for church, school and community are performed by boys enabling them to responsibly hone skills that prepare them for lifelong duties.

Illustrating the intrinsic value of community work generated by scouts is the story of Star Scout, Matthew Leary of Southington who led a team of eight Boy Scouts of Troop 3, Waterbury in a much needed Southington service project this month.  With the approval of his Scoutmaster, Bill Meo, and the Town Manager, Garry Brumback, Matt Leary chose, as his community service project, the clearance of the Laning Street entry to the Town of Southington’s 47 acre Griffin Open Space Parcel.

Laning St. entrance to Griffin Open Space area before clearance. From left: Jeremy Melenciano, Andrew Belske, Matthew Leary, Joseph DeCrisanti, Nick Gormley, Timothy Belske, Tom Sullivan, Anthony Belske and Town Manager, Garry Brumback.  Absent: Joe Mennillo.

Describing the project, Leary said: “The entrance to the open space trail became overgrown with brush, impacted by significant storm damage and illegal dumping, to the extent of blocking access to the trailhead”. The energetic crew of Boy Scouts and 5 adults expended 84 man-hours of volunteer service planning and performing the work. In addition to clearing the brush and debris, the Scouts swept the curb, cleaned the water catch basins and posted a ‘No Dumping’ sign at the entrance.

Griffin Open Space entryway after restoration

Neighboring property owners expressed support for the Boy Scouts volunteer work, but also indicated their disappointment with the project, fearing that it may attract dirt bikes onto the property, Leary said. On August 14, Matt was presented a letter of gratitude from the Town's Open Space Committee.

Scout Troops are organized by ‘patrols’ with older boys teaching skills to younger boys, building character, trust, preparedness and leadership while advancing through the ranks of tenderfoot, 2nd class and 1st class scout. Boys may then advance to Star, Life and the highest rank of Eagle Scout.

Matt became a cub scout at age 7 in Pack 218 in Waterbury where he ultimately earned the ‘Arrow of Light’, the highest award in Cub Scouts and was tapped for the Order of the Arrow, as was his dad in his boyhood. After completion of the service project this month, Mathew Leary passed his Board of Review, thus achieving the rank of Life Scout. His journey to Eagle Scout now begins with many merit badges to be acquired, leadership effectiveness skills and a new and more challenging project required.

Leary is a sophomore at St. Paul’s Catholic H.S. in Bristol who attended St. Dominic School through 5th grade and St. Thomas through 8th. He loves sports, has played Town of Southington baseball, soccer, and basketball in grade school years and high school.

Matt resides in Southington with his mom, Karen Matthews Leary, a physical therapist at the Consolidated School District of New Britain and at the Hartford Hospital, and his dad, John J. Leary, who is Director of Consolidated Accounting at Tronox in Stamford, CT who also is an elected town official serving as Chairman of the Southington Board of Finance. Mr. Leary has been in scouting himself continuously since his own boy scout days in 1978 at Troop 3, where he is currently an assistant scoutmaster. Matt's older sister, Lauren, is a freshman at St. Joseph University in West Hartford who attended the same schools as her younger brother. The family has been deeply involved at their parish Church of St. Dominic for years.

Matt Leary is in on the far right, standing, holding the Troop 3 flag. John Leary, Matt's dad is seen immediately to his right. John is Assistant Scoutmaster. Standing in back, center, is Scoutmaster Bill Meo.  

An accomplished swimmer, Life Scout Matt Leary is proficient at sailing, kayaking, canoeing, rowing and enjoys traveling and exploring. Matt enjoys golf, particularly playing with his grandfather, Dave Matthews. Matt likes science, investigating how things work, enjoys cooking at home and over an open fire while camping. Matt enjoys being a leader in Boy Scouts, teaching skills to younger boys. He’s a tad shy and reserved but has an acute sense of what is going on around him and is a very considerate gentleman. Matt does many chores around home: snow shoveling, lawn mowing, tree trimming, painting, and home repairs. Leary is proficient with a range of power tools. He enjoys working with his hands and using tools. Matt helps his great grandfather who is 96 years old with many household chores as he does at home. He spends time with his great-grandfather watching Yankee games and loves spending time with his 2-year old Golden Retriever, Lucy.

Activities that are not part of Matt's favorite pastimes? Answer:Reading and writing! Well, not just yet, anyway.

Afterword

With profound thanks to the Leary family for their time and input in bringing you this story, for their many contributions to our community through the years and their treasured family values.

Now, Scouts,citizens and friends, let's keep the campfires glowing!

Actual Troop 3 Campfire

Giving Back, Girls Fill 400 Backpacks with School Supplies

Smart Start: A Great Back-to-School Project for Giving Back Girls

By E. Richard Fortunato

Giving Back Girls Sort
Backpacks & School Supplies

Based in Southington, CT, about 18 miles southwest of Hartford, there's a group of mostly middle school and some high school girls who call themselves the Giving Back Girls.  It was actually started in 2010 by Erin and Emily Gibney, 14 year old twin daughters of Tricia Gibney, COO of The Arc of Southington. Inspired by the generous community service of their parents and so many in this generous community who help meet the needs of others who are less fortunate than most. Now in their third year, the GBG have grown to 23 girls, predominantly 7th to 10th graders, ranging in age from 7 to 15,

The Giving Back Girls are involved in several service programs during the course of the year. For example, there are “Fill the Truck” Food Drives held several times a year. The girls distribute flyers outside of the local Walmart requesting shoppers to help by making a food purchase to donate to help feed the hungry as they finish shopping. Food gathered is put on the truck and delivered by the Fire Department to Southington Community Services to help feed hungry families. 

Girls give hundreds of
hours to a "Smart Start"

The GB Girls run Bake Sales to raise money for the Food Pantry to buy food from FoodShare which are always needed to supplement food and cash donations. The help of GB Girls is increasingly significant and helps prevent food stocks at the Southington Food Pantry from falling short at times. 

Just this month the girls have collaborated with the Southington Community Services annual Smart Start Back-to-School Backpack program. Southington Community Services secures backpack donations for K to 12th grade kids whose families need a bit of financial help. The Giving Back Girls organize and do the work of sorting backpacks by size, age, gender and color, labeling them accordingly, filling them with school supplies such as pencils, pens, crayons, memo pads, markers, color pencils, pencil sharpeners, folders, fun books and fun bags.  

Backpacks and supplies are received from private donations and special drives, one of which is the “Fill A School Bus Drive” in which the Giving Back Girls participate. The girls hand out flyers listing needed school supplies to shoppers going into Walmart. Southington shoppers are very supportive, generously adding needed school supplies to their planned purchases. On the way out, the GB Girls assist them in getting donated supplies onto the school bus.  

The girls worked at the Southington Community Services warehouse filling the backpacks with supplies, organizing them according to age and gender guidelines. The goal was to fill 400 donated backpacks by Aug. 19^th, ready for pickup, delivery and distribution by SCS at Derynoski School on the next two days.  They met their objective and helped the Board of Education and SCS distribute over 400 backpacks to kids who really appreciated it.

Erin (L),and Madison organizing material
for the team of Giving Back Girls

Erin Gibney and a few others organized a system for filling the backpacks efficiently. “In a way,” Erin said, “My sister, Emily and I feel it’s training and experience for the younger girls who will be leaders in future years.”. SCS Director, Janet Mellon, said: “I am thrilled by the growing generosity and cooperation of the Giving Back Girls, the Board of Education, Walmart and other private donors.” This year, Dr. Carol Grant decided to promote the program, asking patients and friends to drop off donations of needed supplies at her office.  

The mission of this blog originally was to reach out to others for common ground, something our politicians and government at all levels still need to do to make this country's generosity more effective and efficient.  As time moved along, as the reader can see, my focus on what people in communities are doing to help their neighbors in their own communities. This mission has given me great joy in telling these stories.  Our children and their parents and grand parents need to look closely around them to see how many are actually contributing to the community either as volunteers or as donors in kind or in money.  There are so many helping to carry the burdens of others.  My hope and prayer is for many more who are sitting on the sidelines to join and be part of the community of responsible citizens.  Are you reaching out to help others or are you just watching the world go around?

Please comment below and share what you are doing to help your community or your country and forward this blog along to a friend. 

STEPS Never Sleeps: Prepared for Launch of 2013-14 Year

Growing Great Kids is the fundamental essence of the mission of STEPS which is about growing healthy kids who are educated to be the best that they can be, in an environment of trust and respect for others, self-respect, responsibility as good citizens with regard for property and the well-being of the community. . 

STEPS is an acronym for Southington's Town-wide Efforts to Promote Success. The Town-wide aspect of the STEPS movement is critically important to the success of STEPS.  

STEPS relies heavily on a commitment of a coalition that includes students, parents, grandparents, the Board of Education, Southington Youth Services, Health, Police and Fire Departments, Faith Communities, commercial and professional enterprises, community service, fraternal and civic organizations, the military, media and every citizen who cares about those who will shape the future of society.

Prevention Coordinator, Kelly Leppard,
works with a town-wide coalition and
collaborating agencies to maintain
a positive and effective pace for STEPS.

A preview of the STEPS agenda for 2013-2014 year:

- Funding - STEPS is chiefly funded by a five-year federal grant from Drug-Free Communities Support Program Office of National Drug Control Policy through application with SAMHSA, (Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration).  - STEPS will apply for the next 5-year grant cycle in February 2014. If approved in August 2014, STEPS will continue its work through 2019, with annual renewals. 

- New Board members will be announced this month. 

- This year, Asset Building Classrooms, (ABC’s), will continue with individual school and district-wide classroom activities directed by the designated STEPS Assets Champion for each school. 

- Third biennial round of surveys of 7th, 9th and 11th graders will be administered in March 2014 enabling STEPS and the B.O.E. to evaluate progress in reducing specific negative behavioral areas such as alcohol, marijuana and tobacco abuse. 

- Findings will be shared with the community to further engage the coalition.  (Four major tenets of SAMHSA are:  Behavioral Health is Essential to Health; Prevention Works; People Recover and Treatment is Effective.)  

Kelly Leppard and Evelyn Ciaburri
develop projects, ideas and keep
positive communications and action
going strong within the coalition.

- STEPS will continue to promote awareness of the Social Hosting state law, (which makes adults legally responsible for teen age drinking in their homes), Social Norming, Police Department's Medical Drop Box Workshop in September and continue building partnership with SPD in merchant education and compliance checks, (enforcement operations.)

- SPD will work with STEPS Drive-In Committee for Halloween Festival and other community projects. 

- Lt. Michael Baribault of the S.P.D. will join Town Council Chairman, John Dobbins and STEPS Youth Prevention Coordinator, Kelly Leppard, as presenters at the Connecticut Youth Safety Conference to be held on September 27, 2013 at Goodwin College.  

- This summer STEPS has stepped-up its efforts to partner with the media with the set up of a STEPS blog on Southington Patch, supplementing its website at www.southingtonsteps.org.  

- Fall efforts also include the use of popular family conversation cards, work on a town ordinance to effectively deal with substance abuse, Southington Safe Schools Tipline, awareness of Southington Serves and the Social Host campaign: Do not purchase alcohol for minors.

Vacation Bible School Message: "The Kingdom of God is Me"

"The Kingdom of God is Me".  That's what 4 to 10 year old Campers at the 2013 Vacation Bible School heard throughout their week of summer camp at the Church of Saint Dominic of Southington, CT.  That theme expressed with simplicity the joyful meaning of an exciting adventure:  God is Love. God's Kingdom is each and everyone of you.

"I thought I had stepped into the Land of Oz"

Invited to be a story teller to help start the fourth day of this year's VBS program, imagine my first steps into the entrance foyer of the church at 8:40 am last Thursday. I had the sense of virtually walking into the Land of Oz.

The place brimmed with the activity of 141 Vacation Bible School Campers from pre-K through fifth grade, eager to start their day of enchanted romping through an aptly themed “The Kingdom of God”.

With 91 junior volunteers, 6th to 11th grade, and 24 adult leaders moving briskly to their appointed posts, campers safely moved with amazing alacrity to their age-appropriate starting places.

Campers checking in before 9 am.

In a fun, joy and somewhat fantastic setting, the children rotated through designated play, pray, work and learning experiences in a lively upbeat tempo. Delicious snacks and social time offered kids a break that allowed them to kind of absorb the totality of the journey through the exciting sets and stages of the Kingdom of God, where momentary surrealism met divine reality.

Through the fairy land décor and the imagination, (wink-wink), of campers, the kids were witness and partners in the Social Justice component of service ... their collection of food for Southington Social Services. They knew that they were helping to feed the hungry by stocking the Southington Food Pantry during a slow time of summer.

“This is the 17th year of VBS at St. Dominic.”, said Religious Education Director, Theresa Kamradt. “Our theme was ‘The Kingdom of God is Me!’ We learned that God is King and that we, who serve God and one another, are in reality that Kingdom.”

St. Dominic Pastor, Fr. Ronald P. May was one of the morning storytellers who told the children a story each day about Queen Esther, King Josiah and King David.  I was at first somewhat non-plussed by the story I was to tell to kids aged 4 to 10: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ. How could I, a person who is a lifetime senior to these young children, tell them this glorious story that is the crown jewel of our faith?  It would have to be simple, clear and include sound, tone and word images that were at once beautiful and appealing to the young creative imagination.  An Internet Search took me to Amazon's children stories of faith where I was able to order and instantly delivered to my Kindle a story of Easter for only $2.99.  Pushing my creative instincts I managed to tell the story of the Resurrection, omitting the Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies and marshmallow chicks; after all it's August not Easter. With a few exaggerated vocal sound effects representing the rain, wind and lightning after the crucifixion and the rolling back of the great stone of the tomb, I was able to avoid my concern of frightening the children who seemed, instead, to be attentively entranced.  Whew!

Religious Ed Director Terry Kamradt
welcomes Chadder and Iggy the Dragon.

Getting back to other Kingdom activities, our Camp mascot, Chadder the Chipmunk, learned the lesson that spending time with people is more fun than spending time with his electronics.  Scatter was joined by Iggy the Dragon and a special appearance by Boomer the Panda after an absence from camp of 2 years.

Kamradt said, “The kids had a great time but the junior helpers are the key to success.” The mostly teens youth are valued role models, forming relationships with campers, rising to the great responsibility they are given while developing leadership training. "It’s a total win adventure for all, including those who attended the Sunday 10:00 am liturgy when the Campers offered a musical presentation of what they  had learned.

In writing the story of this spiritual junket I decided to do a bit of research about Vacation Bible Schools in America adding to what I have discovered about their being common in the northeast.

Turns out, the Barna Research Group, a noted private, non-partisan, for-profit research organization in Ventura, CA., indicates that two-thirds, (68%), of churches in America offered VBS last summer, a level that has been quite stable in recent decades with a notable high of 81% participation of churches in 1997. The Barna Group has been conducting and analyzing primary research for nearly 30 years to understand cultural trends related to values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors.

Not the least of many reasons for the popularity and parental interest in Vacation Bible Schools in America is the all-consuming, fun learning nature of the experience for children. Meanwhile, the trend in participation points, hopefully, to a conclusion that there is an enduring commitment in the United States to the faith and spiritual development of children that correlates to the aspired purpose of their becoming spiritually developed adults, ready to take a meaningful place in their parishes and congregations in service to God and one another.

With roots going back to the antebellum period of the 1870s, summer bible schools continue to do their part in sustaining a valued culture for Americans of diverse faith traditions.

Frankly, I feel privileged to have taken part, albeit a very small part, in this year's VBS at my church. Moreover, the research and writing of this story has been equally pleasurable.

More photos after the jump.