Former V.S. Cub Scout earns Eagle rank

I definitely learned a lot from doing it. There was quite a lot of planning and managing, but I mean, in the end, it was all worth it.”

Mekhi Green Eagle Scout

Long before Mekhi Green, of Boy Scout Troop 485, in Franklin Square, earned the rank of Eagle Scout, a photo — taken 12 years ago — captured a unique moment in Green’s scouting journey. The picture, dug up by a staffer in Nassau County Legislator Carrié Solages’s office, shows Green and his fellow Cub Scouts of Valley Stream’s Pack 106 crowding a hallway at Howell Road Elementary School, beaming, with Solages behind them.

Mekhi’s mother, Jackie Green, who at the time was the pack’s scoutmaster and den leader, remembers arranging for Solages to pay a visit to the scouts to help them earn their citizenship belt loops and pins.

One of the requirements was that the scouts interview someone involved in local government, Jackie recalled. Her thoughts turned to the then recently elected Solages, who gave the fourth-grade scouts a civics talk.

Mekhi’s shared moment with the legislator seemed to have left him with quite the impression, Debra Hansen, scoutmaster of Troop 485, said. He would pay that kindness forward years later as a full-grown scout, when working on his Eagle project, a community service effort aimed at testing the leadership mettle of an aspiring Eagle Scout.

Green decided to reach out to Comfort Cases, a nonprofit that gives backpacks filled with comfort and personal care items to children entering the foster care system. The organization directed Mekhi to a nearby foster care shelter.

The staff at the shelter, whose location was not revealed due to safety concerns, told Green that what they needed most wasn’t comfort packages, but shelving to help address an ongoing storage problem.

When the kids are “pulled out of their home situation and taken to the shelter, sometimes they just have their backpacks,” Hansen explained. “And what little stuff some come with, it’s placed in garbage bags” and stowed in the basement.

Walking into the basement of the shelter, Green saw garbage bags strewn across the floor. “There was no type of order about it,” he recounted. “You’d have to, like, pull out a whole bunch of stuff to try to get to one item and look through just piles and piles” of garbage bags.

Green concluded that it was time for an overhaul of the basement. With the support of fellow scouts who’d agreed to help him with his project, he drew up plans to install five storage shelves of varying lengths, a few as long as 12 feet. He also bought large Tupperware bins in which the kids could store their belongings, and raised roughly $500 in donations to boot.

“For a normal Eagle Scout Project, everyone from the troop is invited,” said Hansen, but to keep the shelter’s whereabouts secret, Mekhi was asked to reduce his team to a small, tight group of volunteers, including two architects with the power tools and the skills to help build the shelves.

“I definitely learned a lot from doing it,” Green said. “There was quite a lot of planning and managing. It was a very big project. But I mean, in the end, it was all worth it.”

Though he earned his Eagle rank at 16, Green’s Eagle Court of Honor ceremony was postponed due to pandemic concerns until earlier this month, when the now 18-year-old Howard university freshman  was recognized, along with fellow Eagle Scout Deshad Otero, at Wesley United Methodist Church of Franklin Square.

And Solages, invited by Hansen at Jackie Green’s urging, made a guest appearance. “I’ve definitely felt like Carrié was an important part of Mekhi’s journey as a scout,” Jackie said.

Stephen and Jackie Green and their son, Mekhi, with County Legislator Carrié Solages at the Eagle Court of Honor ceremony at Wesley United Methodist …

Solages’s peripheral but influential involvement in Mekhi’s scouting journey had come full circle, as the two posed for a photo to commemorate the occasion. “I didn’t realize the amazing coincidence that I walked into, and I can’t really say it was planned,” Solages said. “I just wanted to show my support, because I really respect what they do. The title of Eagle Scout is such a very important distinction, and I respect him for that.”

“I felt like his visit was very important,” Mekhi said. “It was very nice to see that after all these years, he remembered me.”

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