GERMANTOWN, Wis. — A 15-year-old Richfield Boy Scout is working to earn his Eagle Scout badge through a food drive benefiting the Wisconsin Homeless Veterans Initiative.
Andrew Zellner has been collecting food and personal hygiene items, setting up collection booths at grocery stores and events, and organizing drives with police and fire departments throughout Washington County.
"Serve the people who served us," he said. "It's my main goal to feed the people that are not as fortunate as the people around us."
The project has proven to be a bigger undertaking than Andrew first expected.
"I went into this thinking, I'll be done in a couple weeks," he said. "I'm not too worried about it. It's definitely a group effort. That's the biggest thing I've learned."
Germantown Police Department Captain Penny Schmitt said her team sees the hardships homelessness causes for veterans in the county.
"It is a definite need out there," she said. "There are a lot of people out there, especially our veterans, that need that extra support. If this is a way we can do it, that's great."
Andrew's mother, Katie Zellner, reached out to TMJ4 News hoping to spread the word about the project. Their goal is to collect 10,000 food items before Andrew submits his scout project this fall. So far, they have collected 8,000 food and personal hygiene items.
"They're still running out of food that we've already collected," Katie said. "It was very emotional to go through all of this. I'm proud of him for doing this Eagle Scout project," Katie said.
Andrew is still accepting donations. Drop-off locations include the Richfield Farmers Market and the Germantown Police Department. Donations are also accepted online.
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