Valley Stream Eagle Scout spruces up garden at Pagan-Fletcher

Edwin Ortiz spent the morning of June 23 working to improve the gardens at Pagan-Fletcher Restoration on Hendrickson Avenue for his Eagle Scout

project.

“I saw that the gardens were all destroyed and because I love gardening, I thought I would do something about it,” Ortiz, 16, said.

The garden had not been taken care of since a gardening club disbanded many years ago, according to Valerie Esposito, a Valley Stream Historical Society trustee. “There was one herb in the herb garden, and there should have been 16,” she said.

As part of his Eagle Scout project, Ortiz and other scouts from Troop 109 planted new herbs in the herb garden and in the Jay McKenna Memorial Garden, named after a former president of the Valley Stream Historical Society. Ortiz also installed signs naming the different herbs, repaired the birdbath and installed a device to entice bugs to pollinate the plants.

“It really makes the place look good,” Esposito said.

Ortiz has been in scouting since he was 11-years-old. He advanced through the ranks to become a Life Scout in only five years, and when presented with the opportunity to do an Eagle Scout project, he chose “to do something we could [all] enjoy,” his mother, Lisa Ortiz, said.