Ryan’s Eagle Scout Project–Part II

Taco Dinner:  Part of Ryan’s Project was to plan and organize a Fundraising Event.  He decided on a Taco Dinner held at the Church building and invited friends from our community and past soccer teams, members of our ward and other friends throughout the stake.  It was such a great night.

The night before, Ryan, Chris and I purchased all the food for the event. 

Saturday at 4:00 we headed to the church with Taco supplies in tow.  The scout troop and leaders, at Ryan’s request, met Ryan at 4:30 and got their instructions – some assigned to food prep, others setting up tables and some getting the donation tables set up and labeled.  He had emailed leaders and friends to come early as well to support the ‘set up’.  It was great to see him leading the others and taking charge and just this event itself was a monumental project to get organized.

Table set up and bringing supplies in…

Food Prep:  I was in the kitchen with willing helpers and dear friends, Megan and Danielle and several scouts. My friend, Yvonne and I had previously browned almost all of the meat.  We did a few more pounds there, and cut lettuce, tomatoes and made guacamole.  (Ryan thought he’d come in and pose for a picture but he really wasn’t doing any cutting – just overseeing.  Katie was on CAMERA duty and took all of the pictures for the night.)   With so much help, we had everything cut and cooked and in crockpots to stay warm by 5:40.  

The menu: taco meat, shredded chicken, hard and soft tortilla shells, rice, tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, olives and chips.  Our good friend, Julia, offered to make 13 DOZEN gourmet cupcakes for the event.  Very thoughtful… and so delicious.

Sorting: Because all of the setup and food was done early, Ryan got the scouts to start sorting some of the donated clothing.  They worked on it for a half hour and got a lot of stuff sorted, bagged and labeled.  It was so helpful.

Donations:  After Ryan welcomed those who had already arrived Ryan and Mark sat outside the door to receive donations.  He earned almost $800 that night which ended up being closer to $500 after all the food was reimbursed. I think there were 97 people who RSVP'd and a few more than that showed up.

After everyone had started eating and before the entertainment, Ryan stood up and talked about the organization that he was benefiting and his plan for the rest of his project… a speech that he had prepared ahead of time.   Then he thanked everyone and introduced the entertainment…

The Entertainment:  Ryan asked our friend, Brother Clark, who we knew from Georgia to help with entertainment.  Brother Clark was also his scout leader and the one who helped him complete his FIRST CLASS before moving to Germany.    He brought all his guitars, sound systems, speakers and a handful of talented teens from the Heidelberg and Ramstein area – including our friend, Lissie, to play guitar and sing.  It was so much fun!  Ryan knows them all from Stake events and dances and I know a lot of these girls from being in the Stake Young Women’s and it was great to see them again. 

Easter Candy:  One request from our contact in Budapest is that we bring Easter candy for the kids.  We had lots of Candy donations and a couple of Ryan’s friends helped him bag the candies into little Ziploc bags to be handed out to each of the kids at the group homes.

It was a fun event and went really well.  We had to take two cars and have others help drive all the donations to our house.  Chris said that the whole way home Ryan kept saying, “Dad, that was awesome.  I think it went really well but I think people really had fun too.  That was so awesome.”    Fun to see an event come off ok…. (and be over.)