Boy Scout Alex Wyner of Troop 41 in Woodbridge was about to submit his Eagle Scout project plan to a local hiking organization when he changed his mind.

“I was going to be creating some signs and maps and doing general cleaning for a local trailhead, but I wanted to do something more meaningful,” says the 17-year-old Woodbridge resident.

Aspiring Eagle Scouts must plan and supervise a community service project that benefits a local not-for-profit organization. Wyner and his father, Troop 41 Scoutmaster Evan Wyner, inquired with Andy Hodes, executive director of the Jewish Cemetery Association of Greater New Haven. The non-profit organization was created in 2004 to address the neglect and abandonment of area Jewish cemeteries, a consequence of synagogues and Jewish organizations shutting down or experiencing financial insolvency. The association oversees the maintenance of 27 cemeteries and has taken title to 12 of them.

Hodes had just the project: raising and resetting sunken headstones and footstones at the Mt. Sinai Memorial Park on Jewell Street in New Haven. Hodes discussed logistics with the aspiring Eagle Scout, who then recruited friends from school and from Troops 41 and 59 (Bethany). Troop 41 Scoutmaster Evan Wyner and Assistant Scoutmaster Peter Zackin also signed on, along with Larry Hyatt, a fellow congregant of the Wyners from Temple Beth Sholom in Hamden.

Over two consecutive Sundays in May, Wyner oversaw volunteers as they lifted up nearly 100 submerged gravestones with shovels and prybars, put down a layer of crushed stone donated by Nolan Monuments in Hamden, and reset the gravestones onto the new base. In all, 10 to 12 Boy Scouts participated each day, for a total of 100 work-hours. John Nolan of Nolan Monument helped guide the volunteers and took up a shovel himself.

Posted at and sponsored by Congregation B’nai Jacob for about 80 years (first in New Haven, now in Woodbridge), Troop 41 has been in continuous operation except during World War II. Although half of its members are not Jewish, the troop is a member of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Jewish Committee on Scouting, observing kashrut at all activities and organizing its calendar around the Jewish holidays.

“I enjoyed being able to give back to the community, especially in an area that is so often neglected and underfunded and understaffed,” says Wyner, a rising senior at Amity High School who plans to stay involved in the troop until he graduates next May.

For Hodes, the volunteers provided an invaluable service to the Jewish community. Not only is cemetery maintenance expensive, but “this is a special project: taking care of the final resting place for our loved ones is really a mitzvah of the highest level,” he says. “There’s no quid pro quo. You’re doing something to be of service and to be kind to the deceased and there’s nothing they can do in return.”

Hodes is hopeful that future Eagle Scout candidates will continue the work.

CAP: Eagle Scout Alex Wyner with John Nolan.