Only 4 percent of Boy Scouts become Eagle Scouts, and Calogero Sferrazza, a junior at Pierson High School, is about to become one of them. As a scout, he has earned almost 21 merit badges, and plans to earn his final credentials with a project honoring veterans in his hometown of Sag Harbor.
Calogero presented the Sag Harbor Village Board last week with his plan: to hang 20 “Home Town Heroes” banners from the lampposts in Marine Park on Bay Street. The banners will feature veterans from all past wars.
“You’d be surprised how many veterans there are” in Sag Harbor, Mayor Tom Gardella said last week. The mayor, himself a veteran and member of the Chelberg & Battle American Legion Post 388, which is just across the road from Marine Park, said the scout has his “full support.”
That went for the rest of the board as well. Members were only left to wonder how Calogero would choose the 20 veterans to be honored. As of now, he plans to let the American Legion decide on 10 banners and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9082 select the other 10.
The teenager, who hopes to create an ongoing tradition for future scouts, said there are veterans in his own family, and that he’s marched with them in parades. He said he sees “trust and loyalty, like a brotherhood,” in vets and scouts alike. (Monthly scout meetings, he noted, are held at the Legion Hall.)
This summer, Calogero, who attends BOCES for law enforcement and hopes to go college, will attend Boys’ State, a leadership training program at SUNY Morrisville sponsored by the American Legion.
He hasn’t come all this way without support. His troop leader, Carl Browngardt, said this week that Calogero has until his 18th birthday to button up all the Eagle Scout requirements -hours of community service, 12 required merit badges, and nine additional badges of his choosing, plus the requirements from each of seven ranks, from Scout to Eagle.
The banner project, his final one, will be appended to his application to the Boy Scouts of America to receive the rank of Eagle.
Mr. Browngardt, who is first vice commander of the Sag Harbor American Legion, has been a scout leader for 20 years. During his own time, he said, he has seen about a dozen boys earn the top award. Since the rankings were established, he estimated that Sag Harbor has graduated around 20 Eagle Scouts.
All of those boys are to be honored later this year with their photos emblazoned on a scout van.
For his part, Calogero says Marine Park, which sits inside a horseshoe-shaped street called Veterans Way, is the perfect location for the honor flags, where people can focus on them while strolling in the park. He hopes to raise the $2,000 or so needed to design and buy the banners.
Calogero and his troop, Number 455, will be marching in Monday’s Memorial Day parade, stepping off from the World War II monument across from Mashashimuet Park at 9 a.m. The parade will conclude at Marine Park, where the Legion hosts an annual ceremony.