(Originally written for The Oregonian SW Weekly Oct. 15, 2011)
Fourteen Boy Scouts from West Linn Boy Scout Troop 149, along with a few of their dads, logged more than 102 service hours at the White Oak Savanna natural park in West Linn to fulfill the final requirement for a 50-Miler Award they earned at a recent troop Court of Honor.
Assistant Scoutmaster Clint Pepper said Scouts must do 10 hours of community service in addition to hiking and/or canoeing 50 miles to earn the honor.
“The boys worked really hard on this,” Pepper said. The Scouts filled almost four commercial-size trash bins with debris as well as clipping invasive plants and vines encroaching on the trees. 
“The kids found things as diverse as tires to the receptacles for giving cattle their water. They got to places I did not think they would get to in a day,” said Roberta Schwarz, who has helped raised more than $1 million for the city to acquire the 14-acre park. “What the kids did … opened up a whole new part of the savanna that had never been accessible to people because of the blackberries and undergrowth.”
Schwarz added that this was the first time the park has hosted a Boy Scout project this big.
“Troop 149 exceeded all expectations,” she said.
Originally published in Oct. 15, 2011 Oregonian SW Weekly Oregonian story link
Would the Scout who stopped by yesterday looking for work please contact me.
Hi Megan- they are an amazing troop for sure! And, White Oaks are so beautiful. Roberta is one go getter of a woman, to raise one million dollars to preserve the park!
What a feeling of accomplishment that must have given the boys. Thanks for sharing this story.