Eagle Scout’s Efforts Leave A Mark

In Dodgingtown Fire District

By Shannon Hicks

Can firefighters, police, and medical personnel find your house easily in the event of an emergency?

That was the question Alex DiNoto posed to homeowners in the Dodgingtown Fire District last fall when he decided to embark on his Eagle Scout project. The importance of being able to find a house quickly, at any hour of the day and in any weather condition, was not lost on the Newtown resident, who himself is a member of Newtown Hook & Ladder Volunteer Fire Company. His subsequent efforts and the completion of a project to put numbers on the mailboxes of every homeowner who gave him permission to do that will be recognized later this month when Newtown celebrates its newest Eagle Scout.

Friends, family, and fellow Scouts will join Alex on Sunday, June 28, when he is officially honored as an Eagle Scout during a Court of Honor ceremony. The event will be at Newtown Meeting House. It will begin at 1:30 and all are welcome, according to Troop 270 Scoutmaster Peter Lubinsky.

When it was time last year for Alex to decide what to do that would benefit his community, he combined what he already knew about the needs of firefighters and other first responders with a suggestion from a member of Dodgingtown Volunteer Fire Company and came up with a solution: Make sure every mailbox in Dodgingtown’s district had clear numbers on them.

“I went to Dodgingtown because that’s where our troop meets,” said Alex, who is a member of Newtown Pack 570.

“Believe it or not, there were quite a few [homes] that didn’t have numbers on them,” said Mr Lubinsky. “He was going to do just a few roads, but as he got into it he realized he could cover the whole district.”

“From a community service standpoint it’s really a super project. From an emergency response standpoint, when we can’t find the residence, it’s a problem,” said Kirk Blanchard, a lieutenant in Dodgingtown Volunteer Fire Company. Troop 270 meetings have been held at the Sugar Street firehouse for more than 50 years.

“We’re dispatched [for emergencies] by the address,” continued Mr Blanchard, who credits Dodgingtown member Rob Michael for coming up with the idea of numbering mailboxes. “It’s great for Dodgingtown, as well as for the ambulance, and even the UPS guys, to have these homes clearly identified.”

The fire company provided Alex with a map of its district, and he took things from there, surveying the roads and identifying a group of mailboxes that did not have numbers. He contacted homeowners to receive permission and, using donated funds and materials from Home Depot, Lowe’s, ACE Hardware, and the Big Y, he was able to purchase reflective numbers for all of the mailboxes that needed them. As had been promised in a letter Alex sent to the homeowners in the early stage of the project, every mailbox he worked on now has a three-inch sticker with a white reflective background and black numbers.

“I got all of the houses where the homeowners gave me permission to do this,” he said. “A few people had numbers already and very few said No thanks, they wanted anonymity. But the majority of people said Yes.”

Alex had help from a number of fellow pack members and their parents, and put in 37 hours of work himself. The entire group spent 79.5 hours on the project.

“He placed the numbers on the same spot on the mailbox, and the sequence goes right down a street,” said Mr Blanchard. “Now we go down a street and see the sequence pretty easily. It’s a huge help.

“It’s a huge step forward. It was a great project.”