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Brian Kobick, a junior at Madison High School and a Life Scout from Reston Troop 1970 wanted to do something good for his community. So he conducted a winter coat drive for his Eagle Project to benefit the residents of the Embry Rucker Community Shelter in Reston.

“I wanted to work on a project that would benefit the community immediately” Brian said. After talking with Faye Leigh Yu, the Volunteer Coordinator at the Embry Rucker Community Shelter, Brian felt he found the perfect mission.

He initiated this program by contacting Jacob Dembin, a District Manager at Crest Cleaners, to see about having the coats cleaned prior to delivering them to the shelter. Brian and his fellow scouts then distributed over 600 flyers in Reston neighborhoods as well as posting flyers at the Reston and Franklin Farms Crest Cleaners stores asking residents to donate used winter coats and jackets for the shelter.

Within a week of posting the flyers, the scouts had collected over 135 coats from various Reston neighborhoods and Crest Cleaners!

Crest Cleaners supported Brian’s efforts and the project by donating cleaning services for all the coats and jackets collected. In fact, in line with Crest’s vision of “giving back to the communities we serve”, the Crest staff at the Franklin Farm location worked after hours for 2 weeks in order to clean all of the coats without interrupting the daily operation of the store.

Mario Majano and Moris Majano coordinated the cleaning of these coats between the 2 stores to ensure delivery of all the coats to the shelter on February 19, 2004. Once received, Faye Leigh Yu of the Embry Rucker Shelter helped with immediate distribution of these coats.

Brian and his troop awarded Crest Cleaners a Certificate of Appreciation for the services they donated to this worthwhile cause. Crest in turn salutes Brian Kobick’s shining example of kindness and compassion put in action to benefit the greater community.