Elbow Grease in Action: Robert Galusha’s Eagle Scout Project

 

Troop 90 has been a chartered Troop of Scouts of America since 1938 and counts over 100 of its Scouts having achieved the rank of Eagle. The Troop is sponsored by Greenfield Hill Congregational Church and is part of the Pomperaug District, Connecticut Yankee Council. Fewer than six percent of Scouts achieve the rank of Eagle, Scouting’s highest rank.

 

Robert has been an especially active participant in the Troop throughout his Scouting career. He credits the many hands-on activities in the program with sparking his interest in mechanical engineering, his planned major in college. As a senior Scout, he has been a kind and helpful leader of the younger Scouts, giving back to the Troop.

 

Robert's Eagle Scout project was for Assumption Church in Fairfield, in August of last year. Father Cipriani, the pastor, asked him to do a thorough cleaning of the church, including the floors, since that hadn't been done for quite some time. This involved taking everything out of the pews, including hymnals and stray papers. It also involved separating chairs that were part of two separate seating areas on the front sides of the church. These were wooden chairs that had a way of hooking into each other to form neat rows. They also had slots to hold hymnals, and those hymnals were also removed.

 

The pews and the chairs were wooden, and so the Scouts first cleaned each pew/chair with a solution of Murphy’s Oil soap and then dried each pew/chair. Then they used Pledge to give them a little shine. The church was also completely vacuumed, and the floor was thoroughly cleaned. The tile floor took the Scouts the most time. Father asked that this be done "the old-fashioned way," without a machine, because the church was advised that a machine could risk damaging the tiles.

 

The floor was very, very dirty. We don't often look at the floors of our churches, but it is amazing what is stuck on there! To remove all the dirt, Robert and his fellow Scouts were all on their hands and knees using scrubbers, cards (e.g., like credit cards), etc. A few people also then washed the floor first on hands and knees and then using a mop. The floor was scrubbed and washed even in between the pews and underneath them. The Scouts went over the floor twice, because the scrubbing brought up a lot of stuff to the surface.

Since the hymnals were taken out, the Scouts wiped them down before putting them back. And they also cleaned the woodwork of the walls of the church, just as they had done the pews and chairs. Although he didn't ask Robert to do this initially, Robert asked if the altar floor and woodwork should also be done, and Father said that was fine. Mothers of the Scouts pitched in as well, cleaning the altar floor on their hands and knees.

 

The project took the better part of a day, and the church really looked great when it was done. The most important tools were elbow grease and legwork, for scrubbing, moving things like the hymnals and all of the chairs (these had to first moved to one side and then the other so that the floor could be cleaned everywhere).

 

"People at the next weekend's Mass commented on how clean the floor was," said Laura, Robert's mom. "It was nice to hear that the job was noticed and appreciated."

 

Robert and Troop 90 will celebrate his achievement with an Eagle Court of Honor later this year.

 

 

Boy Scout Troop 90, sponsored by Greenfield Hill Congregational Church in Fairfield, Connecticut, is a leadership troop in The Connecticut Yankee Council, Pomperaug District. Troop 90 was founded in 1938. Since 1953, the Troop has produced over 100 Eagle Scouts, with an average of four new Eagle Scouts each year from 2007-2018. Troop 90 can be found on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/troop90ct) and the web (http://www.troop90ct.org). For more information please contact Scoutmaster Drew Hiltz at dhiltz2@gmail.com.