Congratulations to OFHS Senior Ian Kuehl who recently attained Eagle Scout Rank.
Frankly, he’s in good company. Famous members of this association are Neil Armstrong, Steven Spielberg, Gerald Ford, Oak Forest High School Spanish teacher Michael Blakley, and OFHS auto shop teacher Anthony David.
One of the major components of this rank is a major project that impacts the community. The project that Ian worked on benefitted breast cancer patients by partnering with the cancer organization “Pink Heals.”
Ian’s project was the creation of comfort bags for women undergoing chemotherapy. These bags were handmade and held a variety of items such as water bottles, mints, activity books, crossword puzzles, comfy socks, and a handmade blanket so they could keep warm.
He thought of this project as a family member went through cancer treatment “and his whole family came together to support her,” he said.
Gathering all of these materials was a little daunting, but Ian created a Facebook page explaining what he was doing and asking for specific donations for the comfort bags, and handmade blankets. He also asked for donations of materials from craft stores and he got some donations!
This whole project has taught Ian so much about “setting goals,” he said. “I made a plan and wrote down all of the donations. I initially thought we would make 20 bags but we ended up making 62!” That number blew his original goal out of the water because he received so many donations he could create more comfort bags.
Ian hopes to major in Finance at a university next year and is making university visits to narrow down which school is right for him. Whichever school gets him as a student will be extremely lucky to have this talented and hard-working young man amongst their freshmen class!
Becoming an Eagle Scout represents a lot of hard work and for Ian, it was completed in a compact one-month time period. The scouting law is being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.