Scout photos from Yard Charge 2008

Sarah Csongei, Amanda Schneider and Bevin Blake, members of Girl Scout Troop 130, help dad Mark Schneider haul a tarpful of leaves to the curb at the Windcliff Road home of Dorothy Tomeo. They were among more than 450 Strongsville Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and family members who participated in Yard Charge, a community service project to rake leaves at homes of seniors and disabled residents.

Cade Coulter, Derek Smith, Anthony Kowalski and Adrian Padin, members of Boy Scout Troop 701, teamed up last Saturday to rake leaves at the home of a Shurmer Road resident.

Seth Kershey of Boy Scout Troop 701 holds two rakes clamshell-style as he gathers leaves at the Webster Road home of Marge and Al Reitsman.

Boy Scout Jimmy Diaz pulls a tarpful of leaves to the street at the Webster Road home of Marge and Al Reitsman. Diaz was one of more than 450 Strongsville Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and family members who participated in Yard Charge, a community service project to rake leaves at homes of seniors and disabled residents.

Scouts charge into seniors’ yards to clear autumn leaves

Marge Reitsman watched as a small army of about 20 Boy Scouts, armed with rakes, leaf blowers and tarps, surrounded her Webster Road home on Saturday, November 8, and went to work, clearing her hilly, wooded five-acre lot of fallen leaves. Marge and her disabled husband Al, who have lived in their home for 55 years, had not expected to see so many Scouts, leaders and parents show up.

Across town, tears welled into Dorothy Tomeo’s eyes as she spoke of the pleasant, friendly senior Girl Scouts who methodically raked the leaves from her Windcliff Road home. No longer able to do the work herself as she’s gotten older, Tomeo expressed gratitude toward the teens who spent part of their morning helping her.

“Do a good turn daily” is the Scouts’ slogan, no better evidenced than Yard Charge, an annual good turn organized by the Greater Cleveland Council of the Boy Scouts of America. In Cleveland and surburban neighborhoods last Saturday, thousands of Scouts turned out to help seniors and disabled residents who otherwise might not be able to clean up the autumn leaves from their yards.

Don Young, Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 701, which is sponsored by the Strongsville Rotary Club, embraced the council’s good turn and expanded it. For the past two years, he has invited all Scout units in Strongsville to make Yard Charge a community-wide service project. An estimated 450 people turned out to volunteer their time on that Saturday, raking at least 65 yards.

“Yard Charge was a huge success,” Young said. “We had 22 Scout troops and packs taking part in this service project. This included both Strongsville Boy Scout troops, all five Cub Scout packs and 15 Girl Scout troops.

“Based on the numbers given to me by the unit leaders, we had 28 raking crews that included 269 Scouts and 186 adult leaders or family members raking leaves,” Young continued. “In addition, our kids helped the Strongsville Kiwanis Club put up all of the flags around the Commons before we headed out to rake.”

Sheena Dean, Strongsville’s family preservation coordinator, provided Young with the names and addresses of eligible residents. The volunteer effort was promoted through a monthly newsletter and resident visits. Young also got phone calls from seniors asking if they could be added to his list. He then plotted out the addresses on a city map and assigned clusters of yards to each raking crew.

Although the Scouts did not accept money for their service, Young said some grateful residents gave the youths freshly-baked cookies or hot chocolate.

Besides raking the assigned yards of seniors, one Cub Scout pack also raked the yard of a family with a parent serving in Iraq, Young said.

“You cannot imagine how much the senior citizens appreciate what you all did,” Young wrote in an email to participants after the event. “It is amazing what a couple of hours and a little sweat can do.”

Campaign for Change in Strongsville

I had the opportunity to spend time during this presidential campaign working on behalf of Sen. Barack Obama. Once I spent a couple of hours at the home of a volunteer coordinator phoning Strongsville residents to promote Mr. Obama's cause. Then, on Election Day, I spent about four hours doing door-to-door canvassing in the Hunting Meadows development.

Elation is the word that best describes how I felt that day. It was warm, sunny and it felt incredibly good to be out on the streets working for a noble cause. I told some of the other volunteers how I hadn't gotten involved in a political campaign since stuffing envelopes for George McGovern in 1972--a time when most of them hadn't yet been born!

As I walked the streets of Hunting Meadows, I asked everyone I encountered whether they had voted yet. Some undoubtedly voted for Sen. John McCain, yet on some levels I did not care, as long as they were out exercising their right--and duty--to vote. One man gruffly said he doesn't vote. Period. I felt bad for him, awash in cynicism or negativity, but decided not to engage him in confrontation. I moved on.

At one house, a mom, dad and son were coming out the front door as I was walking up the driveway. Asking my standard question as to whether they had voted yet, I learned they were just on their way to Allen Elementary School to vote. The voter roster I had been given by the Obama campaign showed four voters in the home and I quickly learned one son was away at college and had already voted by absentee ballot. I asked the other son, who had just turned 18, whether this was his first presidential election, to which he said with eager anticipation that it was his very first election. I related to him that my own son had voted that morning before heading back to college. All three of them were intending to vote for Barack. They knew their precinct and voting location, so I simply thanked them for voting and moved on.

Encounters like that were experienced all afternoon. I even walked up to the house of a McCain supporter, complete with yard signs, and talked to the mom. Her son wasn't home from work, yet I asked her to give him a flier for Barack, to which she responded that she would.

Electon Day was wonderful, from 5:30 a.m. when my wife and son arose to vote, through to Sen. McCain's gracious concession speech and Sen. Obama's victory speech late at night. We truly live in the greatest democracy the world has ever seen and I cherish the privilege of having been born an American.

America's star is rising

With Barack's election, the world already is regarding the United States of America in a new light we have not seen or experienced in many years. Having lived abroad twice and traveled extensively, I am elated the world is responding so positively to his election as president.

When Kathie and I lived in Germany in the 1980's with Ronald Reagan as president, we learned how Europeans liked Americans as individuals, yet sometimes disagreed with our government and its policies. Fortunately, that improved during the Clinton era, but in the dark days of the Bush II presidency, nations came to despise us, yet most of the Americans has no understanding of why they disliked us so intensely.

NPR aired a BBC call-in show on Wednesday, during which people from such disparate places as Kenya, Sierra Leone, Jamaica, Afghanistan, India and Germany all phoned it. Nearly everyone was euphoric about the United States' vote to elect Obama. The Economist roundly endorsed Obama last week and ran a worldwide "Electoral College," which acclaimed Obama with open arms.

America's star is rising again and he isn't even in office yet. The optimism I feel here seems to be shared by people all over the world. It's a great time to be American and a great time to be a citizen of the world.

We, the people...

This nation, founded by idealists educated in Latin, Greek, history and the rights of man as espoused by a long line of European philosophers, has chosen a worthy successor to the office held by Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, two Roosevelts, a Kennedy and many others.

As I counsel our next generation of leaders as they strive to earn the Boy Scouts' Citizenship in the World merit badge, the young men and I study the powerful yet beautiful words of the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States:

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

A mere 52 words, barely five or six lines on paper, sit atop our entire body of law, all government, and many of the political and societal rituals with which we are familiar and accustomed in this land.

These words ring so true to many Americans this week. Americans who have not felt American in the fullness of the word. Americans whose lineage goes back further in history than my own family's late 19th century immigrant stories, but Americans who have not felt fully American until now.

Intensely free-spirited and intensely patriotic--yet intensely liberal--for most of my life, the election of Barack Obama this week has been one of my proudest moments. Finally, I have seen this great, great nation break through one of its last barriers--the American apartheid--and elect an intelligent, prudent, pensive man of color to serve as our forty-fourth chief executive.

It's more than disintegrating a racial barrier, though. We've elected the man with the vision to lead our nation back from the depths of war and financial crisis. A man in the mold of Roosevelt and Kennedy, a man who can inspire the nation to do great things. Perhaps like Kennedy's urging the nation to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade, Obama can lead our nation to responsible energy independence through reduced consumption. Perhaps he can put an end to our unjust and immoral war in Iraq, yet accomplish the undone mission of punishing those hiding in the borders of Afghanistan or Pakistan who are truly responsible for 9/11.

The challenges of the economy, war, health care, global warming and rogue nations seem insurmountable to someone like me, yet I have hope that Barack and his team have a better chance than anyone else to lead us forward.

"Yes we can," the mantra of Obama's campaign for change, has risen above the high level of hope it inspired for these last two years. Now, change is so close we can almost feel it, touch it, experience it ourselves. I, for one, can hardly wait for the 20th day of January in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, when President Barack Hussein Obama steps in to lead our great nation forward.