Gratitude by the bottle

Published 7:00 pm Wednesday, May 23, 2007

When Eagle Scout candidate Roman Larsen put out a call requesting children’s chewable vitamins for orphans in Ukraine, he naively asked for “a lot of many.”

Whidbey answered — with 1,194 bottles worth. That translates to 94,140 vitamins to be exact, or a year’s worth of vitamins for 258 orphans.

“It’s amazing — it’s like millions and millions of vitamins,” Roman said.

There’s no doubt why the 13-year-old’s vitamin collection project produced such profound results. You see, it was a project of passion for this young man who grew up in an orphanage in Dnipropetrovs’k, Ukraine. During his four years there he was extremely malnourished. He and hundreds of other orphans received only porridge for breakfast, a broth for dinner, occasional potato chunks, and bread if they were lucky. There was no meat, no fresh vegetables or fruit. Roman wanted the kids to grow up “big and strong” and be without the rickets condition from which he still suffers.

So while people generously donated vitamins to collection bins that were stationed at businesses, on island and off, from April 16 to 30, they were doing more than just helping one young man succeed as a leader — they helped fortify the future.

“We’ll be able to help so many children,” said Kim Larsen, Roman’s mom. “Thank you to all the people of Whidbey for the outpouring of support for this project.

Roman had quite the crew of volunteers to lead the project. Boy Scouts from Troops 59 and 4063 stepped forward to help, as well as Cub Scouts from packs 61, 63 and 522. Several members of the community also volunteered time, as did scout parents. More than 40 people helped out in one way or another.

Roman and some of his helpers, including his mom Kim Larsen, boxed up the vitamins last week. Clearsnap, Inc., of Anacortes donated shipping costs to send them to Roman’s former adoption agency, Small World Adoption Foundation in Missouri. Small World adoption staff will load them up in their suitcases when they travel in mid-June to orphanages in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

The thought of being able to offer such a gift to orphans brings abundant happiness to Roman and his mother. They were all smiles last week as they combed through the piled-high bottles of vitamins. Each one came with great stories of children approaching with handfuls of pennies. Seniors came with spare dollars and their own scouting stories to tell, as well as many scout salutes.

The response to an April 14 Whidbey News-Times article about Roman and his vitamin drive drew immense response from the island.

“We collected more vitamins than we could have dreamed possible,” Kim Larsen said. “We got to know the people at Albertson’s pretty well. They sold out of vitamins every time we were there with fliers — it was amazing.”

Of the thousands of vitamin bottles, only about two dozen were collected off island, as well as some off-island monetary donations. Other than that, it was all Whidbey helping Roman make his dream of helping orphans come true.

Kim Larsen has enjoyed this time watching Roman grow as a leader.

“He realizes you can’t just thank people with a doughnut or a hand shake,” she said with a laugh.

Although, there were plenty of doughnuts that went around to help entice volunteers and keep them energized for the work. Roman and his support staff of scouts logged more than 300 hours of work.

From start to finish Roman led his crew through it all, from assembling collection containers to soliciting businesses to host collection containers. They handed out fliers and made informational displays. Roman and his mom even shopped around for the best deals to turn monetary donations into even more vitamins. And last week they were quite busy boxing up those vitamins to get them one step closer to the orphans.

This Eagle Scout project was a huge deal for Roman. Being a scout is a legacy in the Larsen family. Grandpa was a scout in his youth, and he and grandma continued as leaders when their three sons joined scouting. Kim Larsen, along with her three sisters, grew up going on scout outings along with her brothers, and in turn became a leader herself.

Roman joined scouts when he was eight. He worked his way up and earned his Arrow of Light at age 10. He became a Boy Scout at the age of 11 and three years later his sash bears 34 merit badges.

The last step to that goal is his Eagle Scout Leadership Project, which must be completed to develop and show his leadership as a scout. At age 14 he’s on the younger end of the spectrum since most scouts are 14 to 18 when they earn Eagle, Kim Larsen said.

The next step in Roman’s quest to achieve Eagle Scout includes collecting letters of recommendation and preparing to present his project to a District Eagle Board in June or July, depending on the board’s schedule.

“They’ll interview him, go over the materials he presents them and make sure he showed he can be a leader,” Kim Larsen said.

There’s little doubt they’ll agree with what countless of people already know: Roman Larsen was born to lead.