UNM freshman Jake Wellman was honored last week by President Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his work with the Boy Scouts' ArrowCorps5 project.
In December, Wellman's peers elected him to be national chief of the Order of the Arrow, which allowed him to help oversee five nationwide service projects this summer.
He teamed up with nearly 5,000 adults and Boy Scouts his age and younger to clean up sites such as the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri.
Brad Haddock, Wellman's adviser, said the project this summer was a huge success, in spite of the tremendous amount of work needed at each site.
"We finished more work than we had planned doing at each of the sites," he said. "We were very fortunate to have Jake as the chief."
Participants in the ArrowCorps5 project were not paid for their work. In fact, they had to pay $250 dollars a week to work on a site, Haddock said. After the fees were collected, the Boy Scouts raised money through private grants, corporate grants and individual donations. They did not receive government funding.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
In total, the ArrowCorps5 project raised nearly $2.5 million, Haddock said.
The Boy Scouts also received nonmonetary donations, he said. The town of Redding, Calif., gave the project 1,200 gallons of gasoline to carry workers to and from work sites.
Haddock said most of the funding the scouts received was not directed toward any one work site but went to fund the project as a whole.
Wellman said this summer's project was the largest the Boy Scouts have ever done.
"It was a week inside the National Forests, and we did pretty much whatever the (National Forests) wanted us to do," Wellman said.
The Boy Scouts helped the U.S. Forest Service by clearing pathways, getting rid of potentially dangerous trees and plants and building new places for people to put their tents, Wellman said.
Haddock said Wellman was completely in touch with what was going on at each site and knew what needed to be done most urgently.
"At one service project, we removed 22 tons of illegal garbage in the woods," Haddock said.
Haddock said Wellman is one of the youngest national chiefs the Order of the Arrow has had, but everyone was very receptive to him.
"The amazing thing about it was Jake is very good at relating to the youth and the adults," Haddock said. "He would get out there and work - a lot of the youth and adults wouldn't know he was the national chief."
Wellman, along with two other Boy Scouts, received the president's Volunteer Service Award this year, presented by Bush and Schwarzenegger.
"It was really cool to meet them, and they were really supportive of the Boy Scouts," Wellman said.
Patrick Rooney, a friend of Wellman's, worked with him at a service project site in Virginia this summer. Rooney said Wellman's presence at the site was great motivation for everyone working there.
"Given the nature of Jake's position, a lot of people were very glad to have him there," he said. "He talked with a lot of the people there, and everyone I talked to was really glad to have him there."
Rooney said Wellman went to different crews each day and got to know the campers. "He met most of the kids there, and most of them didn't know who he was until he gave a speech at the end of the week," Rooney said.
Throughout all five service project sites in the nation, Haddock said the Boy Scouts worked about 280,000 hours, in part because of Wellman's inspiration.
"He really has a strong purpose, and he was out there working with us every week," Haddock said. "He was very humble and very interested in making a difference."
