Boy Scout fields his Eagle dream

Boy Scout Joe Cerulli loves baseball. So when thinking of a project to earn his Eagle rank, he immediately thought of his favorite sport.

Cerulli, 16, recently renovated a baseball field at the James A. Dever School. Every Boy Scout must complete a community service project to become an Eagle Scout, along with earning numerous badges. Cerulli said this project is last step on his journey.

“I feel good helping out the community,” he said. “I wanted to make kids happy.”

Cerulli, of Malverne, is a Boy Scout with Valley Stream Troop 109 and attended the James A. Dever School growing up. He is a junior at Holy Trinity High School.

Back in October, Cerulli started to think of ideas for his Eagle Scout project and thought about renovating one of Dever’s baseball fields. He said he played on it as a kid and remembers it wasn’t in the best condition. Cerulli and his father, Andy, met with the District 13 Board of Education to talk about the project and got the go-ahead as long as he funded it.

Cerulli went around to local businesses asking for donations. In addition to money, he was given all the sod for the infield, rakes and tools, soil and a half-price discount on clay. “We got a lot of big donations,” Andy Cerulli said.

Dever students also contributed money to the project. Each child who brought in a dollar got their name on paper baseball and put on a bulletin board in the school designed to look like a baseball diamond. In total, Cerulli raised about $1,700 from the students, businesses, friends and the Valley Stream Little League.

Principal Darren Gruen said the field is an improvement to the school grounds and students are looking forward to playing on it. “We’re all very proud of Joe,” said Gruen, who remembers Cerulli well as a student. “We appreciate the fact that he thought of us when planning for his Eagle Scout project.”