Eagle Scout hopeful helps out MY House

PALMER — When it came time to organize his Eagle Scout project, some parts were harder than others, Keegan Halsey said Saturday.

His project was installing a drive-thru window at the Gathering Grounds, the coffee shop that is part of the MY House charity for homeless teens.

“Getting the right window was a big one,” Halsey said. The building is an older one and “they needed a weird size.”

As for the easy parts — Halsey seemed to think he probably had more volunteers than he needed.

“They can’t all get in there and work,” he noted, indicating the small window-sized opening in the wall his crew was working on.

Halsey’s Boy Scout troop is associated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s been Scouting, he estimates, since he was 7 years old.

He said he decided on this project because he supports the work MY House does.

“I wanted to do something for this organization and I asked them what they needed,” he said.

Michelle Overstreet, president of the board of directors of MY House, said the plan is to provide everything the coffee house currently serves — coffee, sandwiches, soup — with the drive-thru.

The coffee shop is an attempt to create a sustainable business that employs homeless teens and raises money to help them. In the back of the shop is a homeless outreach center connecting teens to services they need.

As the sawing, hammering and nail-gunning proceeded just a few feet away, Overstreet ran a board meeting at one of the coffee shop’s tables.

The motions to hire people and create positions at the shop were interspersed with encouragement and enthusiasm. She pointed board members to the charity’s healthy bottom line.

“That’s phenomenal!” she said of the balance in MY House’s bank accounts.

One of the things that seemed to excite her and the other board members most was an event that had taken place just the day before. The Gathering Grounds had hosted a music and poetry reading event.

“Just that moment in time, that they can stand up in front of 30 or 40 people and read a poem about their pain — that’s huge,” Overstreet said.

The board hopes to make the event weekly. She said it went off without any advertising. Forty people is close to the capacity of the building. Overstreet believes that demonstrates there’s demand for live entertainment, especially in an alcohol-free environment.

“The café last night was slammed,” she said. “That’s a money-making proposition.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.