A Maple Ridge scout is making a difference in the community by cleaning up hospital grounds, giving hospital patients a nice place to sit outside to find reprieve in nature.
Joey Meunier, a member of the 1st Haney Scout Group, organized a group to go to Ridge Meadows Hospital and clean up one of the outdoor gardens.
He recruited his younger brother Dylan, in addition to Emily Donaldson, and Liam Nelson. His father, David Meunier, who is co-group commissioner with the 1st Haney Scout Group, and fellow scouter Margaret Cleaver, were on hand to supervise.
The group spent about five hours on a Saturday in March tidying up a garden outside the oncology unit, directly in front of the hospital.
It was an idea that came to Joey from a previous project at the hospital about four years ago.
Then, Joey, and some of his scout friends cleaned up some of the outside grounds at the hospital – the same garden, in fact.
Joey explained that the work they originally did at the hospital was quite a while ago and slowly the grounds have started “to not look as nice”.
“We wanted to go back, fix them up, and make them look nice again,” he said
Debbie Kennedy, assistant to the director of Clinical Operations at Ridge Meadows Hospital, showed the 14-year-old around the different gardens and left it up to him to choose which space he wanted to clean up, explained his father David Meunier.
He chose this garden because it was the one he had worked on in the past with another group of scouts and the space was not too large.
“It would make an impact because of the oncology patients but then it wasn’t too big of a job for him to do given he only had three other scouts who were able to give him a hand,” explained his father.
READ MORE: 1st Haney Scouts celebrate 90 years
ALSO RELATED: Ridge Meadows Hospital after 60 years
Joey undertook the project for his Chief Scout Award, for which one of the requirements was to do a community project of the scout’s choosing.
The Beavers have something similar and they are planning to work on a different garden later this year.
The scout group has been back to the hospital to help with the grounds cleaning four times over the past eight years, said his father, to work on different gardens.
Next on Joey’s schedule is a fundraiser for the BC SPCA being put on by his scout group. They will be collecting pet food and supplies from 1-4 p.m. on Saturday, May 13, behind Golden Ears United Church at 22165 Dewdney Trunk Road.
Have a story tip? Email: cflanagan@mapleridgenews.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.