A local Boy Scout is collecting donations for troops based out of the Plant City National Guard Armory.
When Brendan Rollyson began to plan his Eagle Scout Project venture, he knew exactly who he wanted to serve.
Rollyson has been a Boy Scout since he was in fifth grade. Now a 14-year-old freshman in high school, he is pursuing the highest rank in the program, the coveted Eagle Scout. To do so, he needs to create a project to serve his community. He looked to the Plant City National Guard Armory to find out what needs he could address in his own backyard.
He found out about the 3rd Battalion 116th Field Artillery Unit comprised of more than 125 soldiers and decided to send 25 large boxes of supplies to the group. He is collecting toiletries, beef jerky, cooling towels, magazines and more to send these soldiers a “piece of home.”
“Last year we did an ‘adopt-a-soldier’ project and I really wanted more of a personal connection,” Rollyson said. “When you’re overseas you can sometimes feel lost and I guess kind of feel far away. But when you get stuff from people you know and your home town it will let you know you’re not that far away.”
Though he has just begun, Rollyson has already raised approximately $2,500 in supplies and donations. He hopes to double that before the deadline draws near.
As an Eagle Scout he will strive to be someone people can trust, a person who is known for going out of their way to help others. He said scouts has taught him to be independent, a leader and has given him skills he hopes to continue to develop for the rest of his life.
Captain Rory Yarbrough from the Plant City Armory said the project comes at a perfect time. During
deployment the Guard will normally have a Family Readiness Group, comprised of friends and family of those in the unit, that will donate and send supplies to the soldiers. However, he said that normally doesn’t take place until the soldiers are settled into the new location.
“It takes a little while and things begin to trickle in, but for him to get ahead of the curve and start to actually procure some donations and some of the product and to get that ball rolling, this will go fairly well,” Yarbrough said. “I believe it will time up just about perfectly to where when they’re in country and settled in we’ll start having care packages delivered pretty seamlessly.”
Yarbrough has been with this battalion for 15 years and is working as Rollyson’s liaison to get the care packages to the unit. He said the dedication of citizens in Plant City to the military has always been special.
“I can tell you that I have a lot of relatives in Plant City, and even going there when I just worked on the weekends, the community is just very supportive,” Yarbrough said. “I’ve always gotten comments like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe so many people stopped me to say thank you for your service and want to shake your hand.’ It gives soldiers a little bit of extra strength to be resilient and to do things that are hard when they know the community is supporting them. A lot of things get hard either on missions or at home financially and to know the community is supporting them is giving them a little bit more to rest on.”
Rollyson hopes his packages will be able to give soldiers that extra layer of support, both with physical items and with letters to the troops. He has partnered with the JROTC at Plant City High School to get the letters written to send with each box.
He plans to collect donations from now until the end of March. Donations can be collected at Rollyson-Fearnow Insurance and he will also set up outside of Publix a few times to collect donations. The plan is to have the packages finalized and ready to ship out at the beginning of the summer.
“No one likes to be away from everyone they love,” Rollyson said. “I just hope this will give them some hope and happiness.”
