Monday, January 28, 2013

Leo: Berettyóújfalu Christmas 2012

Our Christmas celebration in the Berettyóújfalu Orphanage was an amazing success this year.  Much of the thanks goes to Leo Burmedi, a Boy Scout from Heidelberg, Germany.  For his Eagle Scout project he collected, sorted, wrapped and delivered gifts to all 120 children in the orphanage.  We asked Leo to tell the story from his perspective:

Leo, Russell & Béla at the Tuskevar house
of the Berettyoujfalu Orphanage

"I have been a boy scout since I was in fifth grade and I was a cub scout for five years before that.  As soon as I finished my Boy Scout Life Rank, I started looking for an Eagle Award service project to complete.  At first I did not know what kind of project I should do.  I thought about a lot of different kinds of projects until I remembered a project Shauna Moffett had done the year before with the Cub Scouts.

Working with Good Sports International, Shauna Moffett had filled plastic cartons with useful items and toys for orphans at the Miskolc Orphanage in Hungary.  It was the first time I had heard about a project like it, and I admired her for running the project.

My project was similar, except that I put together boxes for the Berettyóújfalu Orphanage nearby.  The first thing I did, was to write Russell Chun, the contact person for Good Sports International in Debrecen.  He told me that they needed shoe boxes for 120 orphans that Christmas.  As I kept on planning the project though, I kept on thinking about the problem of transportation.  So when I emailed Russell, he offered to take some boxes back with him in the first weekend in November because he was going to talk about the orphanage at the Patrick Henry Village Chapel in Heidelberg that Sunday anyway.

Later that day I talked to Shauna Moffett, and she told me that she still had a lot of materials leftover from last year’s drive, because many of the donations had arrived after she had already delivered the boxes.  So we decided to put together 30 boxes for the female orphans and send them with Russell.  I met Russell for the first time when we gave him these boxes, and then I got to see him the next day at church, too.  It was really nice to finally get to talk to him in person and to meet his son, Levi.

Now I had to start collecting materials for the rest of the boxes, so I asked for permission from the Garrison Command to set up collection boxes and conduct drives, which they granted.  Then I went to the local commissary and PX, and they agreed to let me set up the boxes and have the drives there.  Over the next two weeks, I collected enough materials to start putting the boxes together.  I labeled the empty boxes and spent a long time deciding what should go in each one (I wanted each box to have roughly the same contents so none of the orphans would feel jealous).  

On Sat, Dec 8, I met with a group of volunteers at the Scout Hut and we wrapped the boxes.  We also made a bag of candy for each of the children and labeled a package of hot chocolate for each of them.  I didn’t want to put any of the candy into the boxes because Shauna Moffett had warned us that strong smelling toiletries might make the food taste funny.  Once that was done, I packed big boxes for each of the orphanage houses and put larger presents, and gifts for the house mothers in them.

Soon thereafter, Kara and Edy Fulop came to collect all of the boxes.  With the help of volunteers from my troop, I loaded the van up and waved it off to Hungary.  Everything was done except from my trip to Hungary.

I left Germany on December 20th, but sadly because of bad weather and travel delays, I only arrived in Debrecen on December 21st, shortly before Russell departed for the orphanage.  When we got to the orphanage we went to one of the houses and sang carols.  We sang "Silent Night" in Hungarian for them and they sang "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" in English for us.  Russell also told the children the true story of Christmas.  Then we distributed the presents.  I was proud to see how my project had brightened up the orphan’s Christmas and how happy everyone was. It was probably one of the most enjoyable days of my scouting career."