Photo provided by the Matianuk District, BSA
John Cremins of Troop 160 shows the plaque and certificate he received after being named Eagle Scout of the Year by Matianuck District Advancment Chair Jackie McColgan. The award was given at the District Recognition Dinner March 17.
Suffield Boy Scout John Cremins earned his Eagle Scout Award in January 2017 and was honored at Troop 260’s Eagle Award ceremony in March. He was happily surprised many months later, when he was named by the Matianuck District as the Emil Huyghebaert Eagle Scout of the Year for 2017. The award is named after a notable, much-appreciated Scout leader of years past. The Matianuck District, comprising twelve towns including Suffield, and 53 Scouting units, held its annual Recognition Dinner on March 17, when the award was presented.
John is now a freshman at Suffield Academy and has continued his interest in Scouting and the troop. Over his years in Scouting so far, he has participated fully in his trail to Eagle and has undertaken several training courses and special excursions, including his attendance at the National Jamboree in West Virginia last summer. He is a rower on the crew and a school tutor at the Academy.
The award committee was particularly impressed with the way that John had researched and chosen his Eagle Service Project, the achievement which constitutes a significant part of the requirements for the Eagle award. He had learned about the troubles some children face when they experience loneliness in a school playground – that “left out” feeling. In 2016, a boy in Pennsylvania had brought the idea of a “buddy bench” back from a visit to Germany and introduced it at home. The concept spread. A child feeling depressed can sit on the bench, and someone who notices may come to sit and chat, brightening the moment.
So John led a project to build and install a rainbow-colored buddy bench for the playground at Spaulding School. That bench so impressed two Suffield parents that, with help from a local charity, they purchased a buddy bench for McAlister Intermediate School. The McAlister bench is lettered with the message, “One friend can change your whole life.” Like that boy in Pennsylvania, John set something in motion here.