Published: July 14, 2009 11:33 pm      

A leader with a cause

William Van Deren delivers on promise of items for Safe Harbor

Bellefonte — The steps up to William Van Deren’s house were piled with fluffy white pillows, boxes of diapers and containers filled with toiletries around noon on Tuesday.

The unusual lawn display was the result of a month and a half of work collecting donations for Safe Harbor of Northeast Kentucky, an emergency shelter and advocacy center for domestic abuse victims.

Van Deren, 16, of Bellefonte, collected the donations as part of his Eagle Leadership Service Project, one of the requirements to become an Eagle Scout. He’s a member of Boy Scout Troop 154, which is sponsored by Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte.

Troop Committee Chairman Pat Galliher said she and Scoutmaster Tom Church advised Van Deren on the project and made sure he met all the Eagle Scout requirements.

Galliher and troop member Dustin Stevens, 15, of Westwood, helped Van Deren load the collected items into Safe Harbor’s van.

Stevens said he hasn’t earned enough merit badges to start planning his service project yet, but he wants it to be something to help his community. He said he came to help Van Deren load the donations because he felt obligated to help a friend with his project.

Ashley van Keuren, a housing counselor at Safe Harbor through Americorps, said donations like Van Deren’s are important because many women come to the shelter without items such as underwear, socks or makeup.

“They are going to be tickled to death by those hair dryers,” Van Keuren said.

Debra Wright, public relations and outreach coordinator, said getting big donations such as the one Van Deren made frees up resources for Safe Harbor to provide other things to its clients, including counseling and transitional housing.

There are 30 women and 22 children in Safe Harbor’s shelter and transitional housing, Wright said.

“This is part of the healing process, getting them in and getting the things they need,” Wright said.

Van Deren said the service project requirement for Eagle Scouts is supposed to build character and leadership skills.

“I feel more organized and I feel like I’ve done a great thing for some people who really needed it,” he said.

Van Deren said he got the idea for the project because his mother has worked with Safe Harbor before. The project started with stations for people to donate at four Russell schools. He asked for different types of donations at each site.

He asked for pajamas from the primary school, diapers from Russell-McDowell Intermediate School, shoes and socks from the middle school and towels and toiletries from the high school.

Later in the project, Van Deren wrote an open letter asking people to donate money to Safe Harbor. People donated about $700. He got a list from Safe Harbor of items needed and went shopping with the money.

Van Deren began planning the project in December. The drive for donations ran from the beginning of April to the second week of May.

KATIE BRANDENBURG can be reached at kbrandenburg@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2657.