A Few Setbacks Won't Stop Aspiring Eagle Scout

For the last year and a half, Stephen Alscher has been working on his Eagle Scout project to create a memorial garden for Nativity Lutheran Church in Wenonah with Troop 295.

He anticipated on finally being finished this weekend, but things don’t always work out the way you plan.

“We were hoping to be done today. But with all the rain it didn’t really help,” said the 16-year-old Junior Assistant Scoutmaster on Sunday. Plans to work on April 10, too, were washed out by bad weather, putting them behind schedule.

It all started after Alscher attended an Eagle Scout project planning course at a retreat called Merit Badge College and came up with idea for the memorial garden.

The 12-by-22 foot rectangular garden will feature a massive gray and red cross made of foot-wide, square gray pavers lined with engraved red clay pavers. The rest of the area inside the rectangle will be filled in with fresh mulch and newly planted flowers.

Alscher had to plan the entire project, including design of the garden, getting estimates for the cost of materials, potential man-hours and other factors before presenting his idea to the church.

Ken Regan, the pastor of Nativity Lutheran Church for the past 11 years, said that it’s going to benefit the congregation a lot.

“People have really taken to it, as you can see by the various bricks that have been donated," he said. "It’s going to be a nice area where members of the church can go out, meditate, remember loved ones. It’s going to be something that’s going to last for years to come.”

After approval from the church Alscher had to go to the Southern New Jersey Boy Scouts of America Council for approval, which took six months.

The next four months were dedicated to getting members of the church, which he and his family have been members of for seven years, to donate $85 per clay paver to be engraved and placed into the memorial garden with names of their loved ones. The donation, however, paid for the cost of the paver and the engraving alone.

They had to make several changes to the project because the original pavers ordered were no longer being made, among other vendor issues.

“So, we had to downsize,” said Alscher’s mother, Cathy, who called it "a good learning experience for him.”

Since then Alscher, his family and his troop have been on a quest to raise money from local businesses and contributors to pay for the garden, in an effort lead primarily by the Life Scout himself.

His father, Scott Alscher, noted that this phase has made his son learn how hard it is to actually fundraise for a project. So far, the top contributors have been Home Depot and County Mulch.

An active leader in the troop, Scott Alscher said that this project has taught his son and some of the other scouts construction skills, communication skills and the value of materials needed for a project of this size.

“I’m impressed,” said his father. “I’m really proud of him. I wish I could have gotten this far, I only made it to Life Scout–I was four merit badges short and an Eagle Project.”

His ambitious son has already acquired enough merit badges to earn the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in Scouting, along with additional merit badges to earn the silver and golden palms accolades that can be attached to the rank of Eagle.

This brings us to Sunday, where Alscher’s mother, father, younger brother and a handful of parents and Scouts were working on the garden and its surrounding areas.

“I’m very proud of him,” said his mother Cathy. She pointed out that her son has a high functioning form of Asperger’s Syndrome. “That’s why this project means a lot to him. Socialization and everything he had to do was a huge step for him.”

Tom Purvenas, the Troop Committee Chair had a similar thought.

“For a boy, it’s a big step," Purvenas said. "He needs to write a project up, interact with adults. He has to convince them that he can do it.”

Purvenas and the other committee members had to approve of the project before Alscher could really get started, a process they were quite familiar with in the 11-year history of the troop.

“We have had 26 Eagle Scouts in that period of time," Purvenas said. "We’re pretty proud of that.”

The West Deptford-based troop had a scout complete Eagle about three months ago, and has another one starting a project on May 15 at Red Bank Battlefield.

Until then, the troop can continue to focus on the memorial garden, as the project is far from over.

"We're still actually getting donations," said Alscher. "Any extra money we get will go back to the church."