Riverview Mayor Andrew Swift (right) congratulates Riverview’s first female Eagle Scout, Isabel Alderman, 18, during the Jan. 19 City Council meeting, while her parents, Brad and Sara Alderman, listen.
By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
RIVERVIEW – Isabel Alderman, 18, the city’s first female Eagle Scout, was honored by Mayor Andrew Swift during the Jan. 19 City Council meeting.
A member of Scouts BSA Troop 1721G of the Michigan Crossroads Council, she graduated from Riverview Community High School last year and is attending Henry Ford College in Dearborn.
For her Eagle project Alderman planned, organized and led the assembly, decoration and distribution of care bags for chemotherapy patients at the Karmanos Cancer Institute, a project she chose to honor her late grandfather, Garry K. Alderman, a longtime Karmanos patient who passed away in November.
Riverview’s first female Eagle Scout, Isabel Alderman, 18, is honored during the Jan. 19 City Council meeting.
The nature of the project was both practical and emotionally encouraging, addressing the needs of patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Swift commended Alderman for her leadership, service and commitment to making a difference in the lives of others.
Alderman said the care bags contained items like socks, snacks, lip balm, pens and puzzle books, things that she hoped would make the chemotherapy process easier for them.
Her advice for other Scouts considering the path to Eagle is to get the tasks you don’t enjoy done and out of the way without putting it off.
“I procrastinated a lot, and waited until the week of my 18th birthday, which was the cutoff to get Eagle,” Alderman said. “I waited until the last minute, so my advice is to suck it up and get it done.”
She said she did a lot with respect to the Order of the Arrow — which is Scouting’s National Honor Society — has held many different positions, and is currently the Lodge Chief of Programs and helps plan Scouting events for the entire state.
Alderman said she’s learned a lot of leadership skills while in Scouting.
Her father, Brad Alderman, said he was proud that his daughter carried out the project she wanted to do.
“She’s achieved a lot,” he said. “I was a Scout when I was younger. I’m an Eagle Scout, and she’s gone above and beyond what I ever did as far as leadership positions and abilities, and she’s actually the number two youth in the whole state for leadership in her position and she oversees their programs and activities for youth throughout the whole state of Michigan.”
Her mother, Sara Alderman, said she is “super proud” of her daughter.
“I love that she has kind of achieved a milestone, and even though she’s the third girl in her troop to reach Eagle, she’s the first one from Riverview, and she’s the first female to hold a number of leadership positions in Order of the Arrow,” she said. ‘I’m just tickled with her hitting those milestones and kind of breaking those glass ceilings.”