Birmingham Teen Raises $17K for Forgotten Harvest for Eagle Scout Badge

BIRMINGHAM, MI — A Birmingham teen raised more than $17,000 to purchase and install a greenhouse that will help Forgotten Harvest feed the hungry, but the effort also got him a step closer to his Eagle Scout badge.

Kevin Cragg, 14, raised the money to buy the 30-feet-by-96-feet Rolling Thunder Greenhouse, and then teamed last month with his parents and other Scouts from Troop 1032, First United Methodist Church of Birmingham, to install it at Forgotten Harvest Farms in Fenton.

After visiting Forgotten Farms in 2014, Cragg decided to craft his Eagle Scout project the charity, whose mission is to both relieve hunger and prevent the waste of nutritious food in Metro Detroit.

“Back in 2014, in pursuit of my Eagle Scout project, I chose to work at a place I never knew existed,” he said in a news release. “I worked at Forgotten Harvest for two days doing various projects while I learned more about the organization. I didn’t realize the number of people in my own community who were in such dire need of food. It was this day that I learned of the Forgotten Harvest Farms in Fenton.”

After visiting the farm, Cragg told farm manager Michael Yancho Jr. that he was interested in building a greenhouse and possibly installing a beehive in a plotted lavender garden.

The greenhouse can be rolled from one plot of land to another so farmers can grow more produce for longer periods of time. The extra supply of food will then be delivered to the homes of needy citizens in the community.

Cragg, who has earned 57 Boy Scout badges, is also working on beehives for Forgotten Harvest Farms as part of a project at Notre Dame Preparatory Catholic School in Pontiac, where he’s a sophomore honor student with a 4.15 grade point average and plays on the junior varsity lacrosse team. He is an acolyte at Christ Church Cranbrook

Major donors to the greenhouse campaign were:

• Rimol Greenhouse Systems, New Hampshire
• Lowe’s, Madison Heights
• Pine Tree Lighting & Furniture,Lake Orion
• Pellegata Landscape Design, Novi
• Home Depot, Pontiac and Madison Heights
• Daniv Chiropractic & Wellness Center, Troy
• Custom Care Pharmacy, Royal Oak
• Alexander V. Bogaerts + Associates, Bloomfield Hills
• Gordon Advisors, Troy
• Endodontic Associates, Farmington Hills
• Dr. Basil Nona, DDS, Farmington Hills
• Digital Media Works LLC, Rochester Hills
• Work Day, Inc.
• Adobe
• Google
• Home Depot, Fenton
• Michigan Landscape and Supply, Fenton
• Heavenly Scent, Fenton