Building Birdhouses for
the Home-Bound to Enjoy
“Do a good turn daily.” That’s the Boy Scout slogan, and on the weekend of December 13-14, 2014, Troop 1916 did a good turn for its generous sponsor, The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, which allows us to use the church for our weekly troop meetings and other activities.
During our annual “Lock-In” event at the church, the scouts always perform a service project to help meet some of the church’s needs. This year, the pastor asked the troop to make some birdhouses for its home-bound parishioners. The scouts thought this was a great idea and eagerly took on the service project.
Scout Felix S. game up with a simple design for the birdhouses, and the troop began constructing 30 wooden residences for various species of birds on Saturday morning.
The scouts had varying degrees of dexterity in making a hammer and a nail work properly. If you could have looked carefully enough at some of the finished birdhouses, you could seen a collection of hammer dents on the wood that should, in theory, have been direct hits on the heads of the nails!
Fortunately, there were no major causalities during service project. This was due, in part, to the fact that we only allowed Assistant Scoutmasters Forrer and Wright to use the “table-of-death” saw. This was truly a fascinating piece of machinery that reminded a few of us of the various (and unpleasant) devices once employed in the Tower of London, rather than a modern wood-working tool.
By mid-afternoon, the troop had finished building all 30 birdhouses and had a great time in the process. We hope that Redeemer’s home-bound parishioners will enjoy them.
After the service project was done, the scouts were then “locked in” the church’s gym for a sleepover and a long night of fun activities, including tennis ball hockey and a viewing of “The Lego Movie.” A great time was had by all!
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