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Scott Erb delivers 37 blankets to nursing home residents
GREENFORD
Scott Erb of Green Township has spent the past nine years pledging his head to clearer thinking, his heart to greater loyalty, his hands to larger service and his health to better living as a member of the Forever 4-H’ers 4-H club.
Taking the 4-H motto to heart and inspired by a project his sister, Emily, recently completed, Scott, 18, a senior at South Range High School, decided to do something special for military veterans.
Emily has had made and delivered 250 blankets to cancer patients, mostly at the Joanie Abdu Comprehensive Breast Care Center in Youngstown.
Scott decided to make fleece blankets for veterans living at Mercy Health’s Assumption Village in North Lima and Humility House in Austintown, and on July 2 he presented 37 blankets, all with patriotic themes, to the veterans.
Included with the blankets were cards thanking the veterans for their service from first-graders in the Sunday school class that Scott, the son of Greg and Mary Kay Erb, teaches.
Second- through fourth-graders at Scott’s church and clients at the MASCO Workshop for developmentally disabled adults also made cards.
Scott started his project in March, raising money to buy fleece to make the blankets by, with the help of club members, recycling more than 5,000 soda cans collected throughout the Greenford community. The money raised was used to buy the fabric for the project.
He also recruited help from the adults at MASCO, and Mercy Health Foundation Mahoning Valley and American Legion Post 290 in Columbiana also donated to the project.
Forever 4-H’ers, of which Scott is president, helped him tie blankets and said they were excited to deliver the blankets and tell the veterans about 4-H while spending time with them. This new club has five members and two advisers.
“I’m excited for the opportunity to give back to my community and honor those who have served,” Scott said.
And, Scott said, he and the club are not done.
The project was so successful he said he is planning to donate blankets to patients receiving treatment at the St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital Congestive Heart Failure clinics.