CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Scout's Eagle project provides tribute to veterans

New Castle News - 3/30/2021

Mar. 27—It was one guy in uniform paying tribute to another.

Actually, to at least 50 others.

For his Eagle Scout project, Alex Pindel, a Shenango High School junior and member of Boy Scout Troop 746, built more than four dozen, triangle-shaped wooden display cases for folded flags traditionally given to the family of a deceased veteran.

Pindel supplied to the cases to American Legion Post 157 in Ellwood City, which then distributed them among the borough's four funeral homes.

"I think it's really great he's doing something for the veterans, especially in these times," Carmella Teolis, a funeral director at Samuel Teolis Funeral Home Inc. and Cremation Services, said of Pindel's project. "

"A lot of times I can't offer the military honors because the honor guard isn't coming out because of the coronavirus. So I can at least give them something a little extra here. And every time one of my families gets one of these with the little card saying the young gentleman who made these, they're very happy, they're very tickled about it. Everybody loves it."

Pindel, the grandson of a Navy and National Guard veteran, said he "just wanted to do something good for the veterans" and that he was well-positioned for the project because his father already had both the plans and the necessary equipment from a former business venture.

He then took the idea to Joe Fisher, commander of Post 157.

"They all liked the idea," Pindel said. "When they voted, I think it was a unanimous yes that I could do the project for them."

His intent was to make 50 of the display cases, but he ended up having enough material to make 10 additional ones.

"I told him, 'we'll support you, but we can't give you much money, because we're basically a paper post," Fisher said. "We don't have a bar, we don't have our own building; we meet at the rod and gun club.

"We earn money doing our (sales of) poppies and try to give stuff mostly to the younger kids. We have an eighth-grade essay contest, and we try to give the high school kids an essay contest, and then we send them up the chain of command to the state."

Pindel began work on his project at the close of 2019, but the arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020 and its pursuant social distancing mandates made it difficult to get some of the extra hands he needed.

"It was hard to get other people outside my family to help," he said. "Some of the days we needed more than just me and my dad out there working."

Still, with the help he could get, along with cash donations and discounted wood and supplies made available by Busy Beaver and Mitcheltree Brothers, Pindel was able to finish the cases by the end of the year. He told Legion members that the project took more than 180 hours to complete.

Fisher picked up the boxes at Pindel's house, allowing the teen's father to keep a box to give to a New Castle funeral director he knew.

"He took a box, and they gave me the rest of the boxes," he said. "I ended up with 44 of them. I have them to each of the four funeral directors down here: Teolis, Marshall, Tomon and Turner.

"I took a box of six to each one of those and explained what the kid did, and he had his name inside the box. These were free. They could order them through the funeral home, but they cost money; they're not cheap (Amazon offers choices ranging from $49 to $159). They thanked me, but I said, 'Don't thank me, thank him. He's the one who did them. He really did a great job on them.' "

Pindel, a member of National Honor Society at Shenango as well as a co-op soccer team involving athletes from both Shenango and Lincoln high schools, is the son of Joe and Ronna Pindel.

d_irwin@ncnewsonline.com

___

(c)2021 New Castle News (New Castle, Pa.)

Visit New Castle News (New Castle, Pa.) at www.ncnewsonline.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.