Scouts thanked for creating thousands of masks during pandemic

I felt pretty good knowing that I was doing something good to help other people out.”

Michael O’Hare, Troop 40 Boy Scout

Town of Hempstead officials joined Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in Baldwin Harbor Town Park on Aug. 14 to thank their troops for helping create and distribute thousands of masks to local first responders, essential workers, veterans and older adults throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hempstead Town Supervisor Don Clavin, who hosted what he called the nation’s first drive-through badge of merit ceremony, recognized the young men and women who helped protect local residents, some of whom have been working on the front lines during the crisis.

“Every one of them stepped up, did right, and, frankly, as far as I’m concerned, they did save lives,” Clavin said of the scouts at the ceremony. “They helped stop a second wave from occurring right now, and they’re going to continue to do that.”

At the height of the pandemic in early May, the town partnered with the Boy Scouts’ Theodore Roosevelt Council to supply the scouts with materials via a safe curbside delivery setup to reduce the risk of exposure to the virus, town officials explained. Each scout went home with enough cloth and elastic material to create up to 100 reusable masks.

At the socially distanced ceremony, about a dozen families drove their scouts up to a sign that read “Thank you scouts,” where they got out and accepted the Town of Hempstead Covid-19 Youth Relief Effort Badge of Merit from Clavin, Council members Dorothy Goosby, Chris Carini and Anthony D’Esposito, and Town Clerk Kate Murray.

The badge is a blue and gold round patch that incorporates the Town of Hempstead seal and scout logo, as well as the health symbol.

Clavin and D’Esposito recalled the first phone calls that started the initiative, and the steady stream of troops seeking to help that followed. D’Esposito offered his cell phone number to troop leaders, “and literally within an hour, I think I had 50 text messages from different troops looking to get involved. And it just increased from there and . . . from all over the state.”

One troop that put together about 200 personal protective equipment kits, Clavin said, drove down from Newburgh, in upstate Orange County, about two hours north of New York City, to deliver the kits.

“If that doesn’t say the goodness that is in people, nothing will,” Clavin said. “We’ve seen the worst during this pandemic, and we’ve seen the best.”

Among those who took part in the initiative and attended the ceremony were Troop 300 of Hempstead, Troop 298 of New Hyde Park, Troop 116 of Valley Stream, Troop 40 of Rockville Centre, Troop 123 of Merrick and Troop 323 of Levittown. Each troop’s efforts looked a little different.

“I felt pretty good knowing that I was doing something good to help other people out,” said Michael O’Hare, of Troop 40, “and that people were benefiting from this small thing that I was doing.”

“It’s not something anyone else would have, so I guess that’s pretty cool,” said Christian Kennedy, of the same troop, “but we didn’t do it for the badge. We did it to help the people who needed the masks.”

“It was a troop effort, and everybody that could contribute did contribute,” said Troop 40 Scoutmaster Mike O’Hare, father of Michael O’Hare, adding that even some people from Suffolk County chipped in. Some of the boys learned how to use an iron when making the masks, combining helping others with the acquisition of a life skill.

“These young men and women are going to look back in time and say they did something that other people didn’t,” Clavin said. “They’ll be able to tell their children when they’re looking at the scouts that I received one of the initial badges of merit for Covid-19. And for us, it’s a simple way of saying thank you.”

“Our goal was to flatten the curve,” D’Esposito said. “The curve has been flattened, and now the goal is to continue to keep that flat. And without a doubt, these Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts have assisted in doing that.”