Teen wins honor for nature work

One of Garrett Rappazzo's first memories of community service was accompanying his father, Chuck, to Papscanee Park as a Cub Scout.

The park, which borders the Hudson River in Castleton-on-Hudson, can be a sink for trash and litter floating down the river, and it's common to see old bottles, plastic bags and other rubbish hugging the shoreline.

At 14, Garrett continues to go to the park to take care of the continuing problem because "I like working in nature, restoring what it was before the trash was scattered there, seeing all the stuff that was hidden."

Outdoors

Garrett, a ninth-grader at LaSalle Institute in Troy, is committed to such service -- indoors and out.

For his promotion of literacy and environmental efforts, he was recently presented the President's Volunteer Service Award, granted by President George W. Bush's Council on Service and Civic Participation.

He earned his Eagle Scout rank at 14 by landscaping and revamping the flower gardens at his elementary school in East Greenbush.

Garrett is interested in going to college for environmental engineering, because "everyone is realizing how important it is to save the environment, and I want to be part of that."

Indoors

The environment isn't his only interest. One day, while surfing the interest, Garrett and his sister, Allie, discovered statistics regarding the literacy rate of Americans.

Stunned that so many people did not know the basics of reading and writing, the two founded an organization called Students for Literacy.

They work with Literacy Volunteers of Rensselaer County to "increase student awareness for literacy and promote events to wipe out illiteracy," Garrett told The Evangelist. "In today's world, there are tons of people who can't read or write -- and nobody's aware of that."

Books

The 12 students who participate in the program raise money for the Race for Literacy in Troy, give out awards to elementary schools that participate, and tutor elementary children in reading and writing.

The group also collected 5,000 textbooks from local libraries and donation boxes around town to send to the Akwuzu Girls' Secondary School in Nigeria.

"I see how bad life can be for some people -- and seeing that condition, you feel like helping," Garrett said in explaining why he helps others. "We're fortunate to have the blessings we do. I thank [God] for all the blessings that I have."

(A Lutheran, Garrett enjoys attending a Catholic school to learn more about the basics of the common Christianity that Protestants and Roman Catholics share.)

(6/7/07)