There was a surprise waiting for Cornwall Youth Soccer players when they arrived at Laurel Crest Park, on Saturday – new aluminum benches to sit on while they rest during games.
The benches came courtesy of Colleen Alva and Julia Seitz, who purchased and assembled them as part of their Girl Scout Silver Award project. As the summer began, the two Scouts brainstormed projects.
“We were thinking of problems with the community that we could fix,” Alva said. “We thought of the park.”
“We’ve played soccer there since we were little and there was never anywhere to sit,” Seitz added. “We thought it would be a good idea to install benches so the kids wouldn’t have to stand or sit in wet grass.”
Since games begin early in the morning, the ground is often muddy or wet with dew. The benches would also give players a chance to rest when they’re removed from the game.
The Scouts’ first stop was to see Michael Kroemer, Cornwall Central School District’s athletic director. He liked the idea and gave the girls some magazines and catalogues to peruse to find the right kind of benches.
Once they found something in their price range, they presented their proposal to the Town Board, which approved the project.
The next step was to raise $1,400 for the purchase of six, seven-foot long aluminum benches. The original plan was to have two benches per team at each of the three fields, but when that proved to be too costly, they scaled the purchase back to two benches per field – one for each team.
They raised money by selling Girl Scout cookies, holding bake sales in front of Dunkin’ Donuts, and selling silicon bracelets in tie-dye green, black, and white, with the words “Cornwall Dragons.” About 30 bracelets were sold to the Cornwall baseball team and 500 were purchased by the Willow Avenue PTO.
The girls reached their goal of $1,400 in time to have the benches assembled and installed for the Sept. 12 games.
