And a Teenager Will Lead Them

Many years ago when I was just a teenager I had my first experience with just how crucial power tools can be in the quickness of a project. I have come to realize in recent years just how delayed we would be in many of the projects we do were we to attempt them without these tools. In fact, many tasks we attempt to perform could be considered impossible without them.

My experience was rather simple. I was involved in the Boy Scouts of America, and as part of that involvement I was approaching the status of "Eagle Scout". In order to obtain this status I was required to present a project that would benefit my community.

I opted to speak with a Family Resources group in my county and find what they might need a hand with. We discussed the opportunity and they present a need to develop their park area that they had for the families.

As we went through what they were wanted to do, we decided that I could help them in the part of installing new picnic tables for them. This was my first experience in leading such a project and it was quite a rush. I went through and plotted where we were going to want to place then, how many we would need, and how we were going to get the materials.

I contacted The Home Depot and asked them if they would be willing to help with the project by providing us with some of the lumber. I told them the amounts we would need and some of the other bits of equipment we needed. They were very accommodating. They equipped us with all the lumber we needed to complete our project and more. They supplied the nuts, bolts, and other fasteners that we needed.

We were now well armed, and I needed a workforce. I asked others from my scout troop to join us in the project. Many of them were available. I asked neighbors, friends of my parents, and members of local churches to help us in the project. We picked a morning to get together and knock it all out, and I prepared to manage the team that would be coming.

I arranged to have breakfast there, and I took an inventory of the tools we had and how we could distribute them. I decided that we would need to have replacement tool parts in case something happened and the team was held up.

A spare saw blade and drill bits were on hand in case they needed to be switched out. I delegated that we would have a two man team at the saw making cuts. Those two were people who could get there a bit earlier in order to make many of the cuts before the rest of the team came to assemble.

That preparation proved to save us a lot of time. We made all the cuts before the crew came, and we had had to use the spare blade to finish that job. Now the team could then split into three man crews and each assemble a table by parts.

Three men with drills ran around punching the holes into every table. The team then used the nuts and bolts to assemble the table top and legs. If we had not had the power tools, we could have taken as many as eight days to complete this project with a volunteer force like ours.

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