Eagle Project Stolen

At the age of 17, Nicholas Valdetero of Abbeville learned life is not fair.
For the last month, Valdetero with the help of scouts from Troop 85 in Abbeville began working on Valdetero’s community Eagle Scout project.
His project was to refurbish and clean the four wharfs along La. 82, south of Forked Island.
The project consisted of changing the rotten boards on the wharf, cleaning up in front of the wharf and then placing polls in front of the wharf to help guide with parking.
The scouts and Valdetero spent many hours at the dock getting it in shape.
Valdetero and his family own a duck camp near the wharfs, so he is familiar with the condition and the litter around them.
This past Sunday he and his family had planned to go finish repairing the wharfs. They drove up to the wharf nearest to Forked Island. He looked around and noticed something was not right. Something was missing.
Then it hit him. The poles he had placed in the ground to guide with parking were missing. Someone had removed them from the ground, at least 20 poles from the four wharfs were missing The wharf near Forked Island had 14 poles stolen.
The value of the stolen poles is $900. The poles were given to him by the Vermilion Parish Police Jury, because the wharfs are owned by the police jury.
When he realized they were stolen, it did not sit too well with Valdetero.
“I was pretty mad,” Valdetero said. “I put a lot of work into this project, along with my buddies from my troop. Plus, this is tax payers’ money that funded it, so they stole from the residents.”
Jackie Valdetero, his mother, said her son learned a little about life on Sunday.
“As a mother, I had hoped to see pride in my son’s face. Instead, he learned a valuable lesson: ‘Even when your good works are under appreciated by some, there are many others that do appreciate them. When you have a choice, do good anyway.’”
He continues to work on his Eagle Scout Project despite the set back. He has no plans to replace the poles that were stolen because the money is not there, plus, they would probably steal them again.
What he would love is to find out who stole the poles.
“An Eagle Project has to have a lasting effect,” he said.