Boy Scout paints inside of Wellton fire station to earn Eagle rank

Tri-Valley EMS Chief Barry Adams was hoping to find a way, based on the constraints of his department's budget, to get the interior of the Wellton Fire station repainted, while Boy Scout Porter Averett, of Troop 8010, needed to complete a community project to earn his coveted Eagle rank.

In what turned out to be a beneficial project for them both, the once dingy off-white colored walls inside the Wellton Fire Station are now a much more colorful shade of sky blue, and Averett is a step closer to receiving his new rank.

“We are very proud to be able to provide an Eagle Scout project to one of our area youths, and of course this helps us out as well,” Adams said. “It was a huge project and the station looks so much better than it did.”

Adams said he got the idea to contact the Boy Scouts in October from having read other articles in the Yuma Sun about Scouts who had done similar projects. Although he wasn't sure if painting the inside of the fire station would actually qualify as an Eagle Scout community service project or not, Adams said he called Brett T. Bybee, the district executive for the Ocotillo District of Boy Scouts of America in the Yuma area, anyway.

Bybee also thought it was a great idea and provided Adams with the name of a Scout who needed a project. That Scout was Averett. Adams said he and Averett got in touch later that month and the youth was excited to take on the project.

“I was never a Boy Scout, so I don't know everything you need to do to become an Eagle Scout, but I do know it isn't something that is just handed out,” Adams said.

The rank of Eagle Scout is the highest rank a Boy Scout can achieve. In order to become one, a Scout must have earned 21 merit badges and completed a service project that shows leadership skills and benefits a local community nonprofit, according to Boy Scouts of America.

Adams and Averett, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints 10th Ward in the Foothills, met a couple of times at the fire station to discuss the project. After seeing first-hand that the building's interior was in dire need of new paint job, Averett proposed it to the Boy Scouts for his Eagle Scout project, and it was approved.

The painting was scheduled to take place on Dec. 17, but before that Averett had a lot of work he needed to do. He spent the preceding month meeting with businesses to get all the materials he needed donated and enlisting the help of volunteers.

Adams said there was a lot of work that needed to be done before the painting could begin and Averett and his volunteers spent the better part of two days getting the fire station ready by patching holes in walls, replacing baseboards and door frames, moving furniture and taping.

That following Saturday, Adams said Averett and his 25 to 30 volunteers, brushes in hand, began painting and didn't stop until all the walls inside the building had a fresh new coat of paint, which took about five hours.

“They hit the place like a little SWAT team,” Adams said. “It really brightened the place up.”

Adams, laughingly added that the last the fire station was painted, at least that he can remember, was back when the current chief of the Wellton Fire Department, Mark Riviera, was just 9 years old. The Wellton Fire Station houses both the Wellton Fire Department and Tri-Valley EMS.

James Gilbert can be reached at jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854. Find him on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/YSJamesGilbert or on Twitter @YSJamesGilbert.