A makeshift Muscatine County Girl Scout troop based in West Liberty learned a valuable lesson about patriotism in a pair of yearlong projects to aid the West Liberty American Legion Post home and the city’s Oak Ridge Cemetery.
The more than 50 hours of volunteer work earned the four girls the Girl Scouts of America Silver Award, the second highest honor in Girl Scouts.
Not only did the girls brighten and clean up the headstones of veterans, including those that served in the Civil War in a year-long project, they spent weeks planning out and completing a project to rebuild rear steps inside Post 509 home in West Liberty.
Scout leader Terra VanDuesen of Nichols said her troop, which includes her daughter Tracie, 14, a freshman at West Liberty High School, and three girls from Muscatine, was looking for such projects when the members of the Legion and Sons of the Legion suggested taking on either of the two tasks. They quickly embraced the challenge, but figured they couldn’t put in enough hours with just one task to reach their goal of volunteering 50 hours, so they tackled both projects.
Starting last fall in working on cemetery gravestones of West Liberty soldiers, some dating back to the 1800’s, the girls gathered supplies like special cleaners, scrub brushes, plastic scrapers and water sprayers to eventually clean up about 150 headstones.
It was this past summer when a veteran passing through the community who had once lived in West Liberty questioned the Scouts about what they were doing and why.
The veteran was clearly touched by the work the girls were accomplishing as he visited the cemetery, pointing out he “didn’t know youth today really cared about things like that,” the leader said.
“He got emotional about what that had meant to him,” said VanDuesen of the 10-minute conversation. Suddenly, their work became “more meaningful,” according to the leader. “After that, it meant more to the girls after he’d talked to them,” she continued. “It totally changed the girls’ perspective.”
It was the first time the Scouts had ever tackled such a project, with the goal of reaching 50 volunteer hours to earn the Silver Award, despite the fact Tracie has been involved in Scouting for nine years, starting the project as a Cadet. The girls also had to complete a Media Journey honor to get the Silver Award.
She explained there are three possible honors Girl Scouts can earn, starting with what she called the equivalent of the Boy Scouts Eagle Award, and the Bronze Award, which can be earned by younger fourth and fifth grade Scouts. There’s also the Gold Award, the highest honor, which VanDuesen said may be the next goal of the two troops, 1007 in West Liberty and 2995 in Muscatine.
VanDuesen said she was proud of her daughter and her fellow Scouts – Payton Brandon, 15 and a sixth year Scout; Amira Coulter, 14, and a third year Scout; and Aubrey True, 14, and a ninth year Scout – for taking on the project, noting Tracie had extra incentive in the fact her great-grandfather, the late Richard Janney, was also a veteran and he cleaned soldier’s headstones.
She said the headstone project was completed in early August and said it took so long because the girls also have a lot of school and outside activities that kept them busy, not to deduct from weather delaying work.
But the girls didn’t have weather problems in rebuilding the nine-step staircase, which was first razed by several Sons of the American Legion members, before the girls took on measuring, replacing boards and painting the steps a patriotic red, white and blue, all with the full support of the Legion, who supplied all materials for both projects, taking “a couple of weekends.”
The girls had to sand, cut and measure the wooden steps in the construction process, something Dusty Noble, vice commander of the Sons of the American Legion unit found surprising, saying he simply acted as a counselor to the two projects.
“They jumped right in,” he said, noting he was “pleasantly surprised” when the girls decided they wanted to take on especially the carpentry role. “They did a good job. They worked their butts off,” Noble added.
He said some finish work on flooring and trim is yet to be completed, but said the girls wanted to help with that as well.
Noble said the Scouts had approached the Legion about taking on a project and he said the group was planning already to replace the steps, so it fit perfectly into an already set structure.
He said even at the cemetery, the girls pitched right in, spending at least several full weekends cleaning headstones. “We just supplied the materials and sprays and showed them how to do it,” Noble said. “We turned them lose and they did the rest.”