Eagle Scout collects clothing items for students
PALMDALE — The Palmdale Aerospace Academy junior Timothy Carrino collected more than 400 jackets, scarves, and gloves for his Eagle Scout service project.
Carrino, 16, donated the items on Dec. 16 to students at Manzanita Elementary School. Carrino chose a coat drive because he thought that is what the community needed most.
“The purpose of the Eagle project is to help your community in a significant way and to lead a project yourself to show your leadership skills and citizenship are ready for the honor of Eagle Scout,” Carrino wrote in an email.
Eagle Scout is the highest achievable rank in Boys Scouts.
Carrino, a Life Scout with Troop 444, chose Manzanita Elementary in part because it has a high population of foster youth.
“They have kids always coming in and out needing jackets, so if any extras were left they could continue to hand them out,” Carrino wrote in an email.
Carrino arranged the project with Palmdale School District trustee Sharon Vega, who served as Board president last year. Manzanita Principal Susan Summers was also on board for the project.
“A large quantity of the donations were donated to us by family and friends,” Carrino wrote.
“I was so excited when he asked me to come to my school,” Summers said. “My students are so excited and appreciated the jackets. Children giving back to children is such an honor to be part of. The memories these children will forever have in their hearts is pretty amazing.” Some donations came from as far away as Ohio and Tennessee. Carrino also collected jackets from a coat drive he did around his neighborhood. They “flyered” 1,500 homes and picked up donations from those homes.
Carrino, Manzanita
staff, and Vega distributed the coats after school the afternoon of Dec. 16.
“The turnout was incredible,” Carrino wrote.
Carrino added they were nervous there might not be enough people to come and get the more than 400 items they collected. With more than 20 minutes left to go in the one-hour event, every single item was gone. In the end, they had to turn a couple of people away.
Carrino has been in Scouting his entire life. He started in Cub Scouts in kindergarten. He has been a Boy Scout for just over five years.
Carrino has two merit badges to finish toward his Eagle Scout rank, which requires 21 merit badges.
He will also need to complete a large notebook of paperwork on his Eagle Scout project.
He will take that to a committee next year, which gets to decide whether he gets the Eagle Scout rank.