With a little more than a week till his 18th birthday, John took on the mission of clearing debris from Braes Bayou to make it passable by canoe. It was slated to take two days to accomplish the goal.
Members of his scout troop were invited to participate. But, John didn’t stop there. He invited friends from Woods High to come out and help. Even though there was nothing in it for them other than helping John, eight came out on a cold Saturday morning. They’re pictured here with one of three shopping carts extracted from the muddy bayou.
Steve Smith, an Assistant Scoutmaster with the troop, and I pitched in to do our part. We even managed to rope and pull out a shopping cart of our own.
A man and his trash. John’s Woods High buddies and both scouts from Troop 1089, managed to do in a day what was expected to take two: about 500 yards of the bayou was cleared and ready for canoe traffic.
What was most impressive of all: John pulled it all together himself.