NEW ROCHELLE, NY — Chris Athanasidy and John Buzzard will join seniors Obehi Adubor, Thomas Stafford and Nicholas Tornatore as Eagle Scouts who will graduate on May 21st.
Athanasidy followed in the footsteps of his Eagle Scout brothers Nick ’10 and Bobby ’12 by attaining Scouting’s highest honor. Athanasidy’s Eagle Project consisted of raising funds and building a new sign for the Grace Lutheran Church in Yorktown Heights. When approaching the Church, the community will see the beautiful new sign with relief lettering and gold leaf paint.
Athanasidy is a member of Troop 174 of Yorktown Heights. He will be continuing his education this Fall at Loyola University Maryland.
Buzzard’s Eagle Scout Project consisted of planning, designing, and constructing a 20-by-20-foot multi-surface patio space within the Student Garden of the New York School for the Deaf (NYSD).
The Student Garden provides the students of NYSD with a living classroom for their biology studies. Here they learn to work together to plant, cultivate and harvest a wide variety of vegetables within their ½ acre plot. The students have successfully harvested over 2000 pounds of fresh vegetables each year and donated their crop to the Food Bank of Westchester.
Buzzard approached the school in the spring of 2014 about creating a project for them. He did this to honor his late grandfather, Rev. Henry L. Buzzard, who had been a member of the NYSD faculty from 1967 to 1992. Buzzard was given the go ahead to plan his project after meeting with his NYSD benefactor and Director of Facilities Rudy Rodriguez. The project was to construct a patio rest area/outdoor class space in the only shady corner of the garden.
Buzzard designed the 20-by-20 space to provide the NYSD students a place to get out of the hot sun and have a place to sit and communicate. The patio project was built Oct. 24-25 with Scouts and adults from Troop 73 of White Plains and a group of Buzzard’s friends from Iona Preparatory.
Now, the students have a place to sit, facing each other and be able to “talk’ to each other by American Sign Language (ASL).