Scout lends a hand

Eagle Scout hopeful Stefan Toubia has crafted a mobile storage cabinet for the Assistance League’s Early Intervention Program as part of his campaign to achieve scouting’s top rank.

Toubia, a junior at Saint Margaret’s High School in San Juan Capistrano, got involved in the Early Intervention Program through Mary Beth Kessler, a tennis teacher who organized benefit tournaments for the program.

The Early Intervention Program offers free counseling and resources for developmentally delayed infants and their parents. There are about 20 families enrolled in the program at any one time.

Toubia’s cabinet holds supplies for the therapists and program staff that at one time were stored in a tall plastic tower in the closet.

According to the program’s coordinator Catherine Hall, the plastic tower had a broken wheel and was wobbly, leading the staff to keep it in the closet when babies were around.

“We were concerned that it would fall on the children,” Hall said.

Toubia, like all potential Eagle Scouts, had to build something for public service as part of his quest to join the ranks of the upper echelons of Boy Scouts.

He recognized the Early Intervention Program’s need and in less than six months had produced a solid unit on wheels that doesn’t risk toppling and keeps infants out of harm’s way.

The project has pull out drawers and is painted with a seascape.

“I was speechless,” Hall said. “He thought of everything.”