Mars Eagle Scout honored for community service project
MARS — Borough council honored local Eagle Scout Caden McKinney of Mars Troop 400 for his recent community service project, in which he helped to beautify Garfield Park in a creative way.
Last summer, McKinney led a recycling drive for bottle caps at the Mars borough administration building, with the goal of collecting 1,200 pounds of bottle caps by last August. The drive succeeded expectations, as he managed to collect 1,250 pounds of bottle caps by mid-June. The caps ranged from small soda bottle caps to large detergent jug caps.
The bottle caps were cleaned, sorted, and brought to Green Tree Plastics in Evansville, Ind. From there, the caps were transformed into a picnic table, two benches, and a garbage can and delivered to Garfield Park in mid-November.
“I had to sort through all of (the caps). Clean them and sort them,” McKinney said.
For his efforts, McKinney received a certificate of appreciation from Mars Borough Council at their meeting on Monday night, Feb. 5.
McKinney, a junior in high school, said he got the idea when he started regularly spending time at the park during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During COVID, I'd hang out with my friends in Mars, and at that park, we'd always go there but there was nowhere to sit down or eat,” McKinney said. “There was already a table there, but it was older and the wood was rotting already.”
Mayor Gregg Hartung was particularly impressed with this project, while council vice president Rob Bost thanked McKinney for making Garfield Park a place where families could take their children.
“This is the third or fourth (Eagle Scout project) since I’ve been here,” Hartung said. “But this has been the real challenge, and ain't no one's going to beat this one for a while.”
