On Sunday afternoon, the Anchor Lanes Bowling alley was the site of the completion of an Eagle Scout project for A.C. Flora High School student John Douglas Elliott. He celebrated the completion of this project by enjoying a few games of bowling with some of his close friends. For his Eagle Scout Project, Elliott decided to teach men at the Babcock Center how to bowl by using the Wii game system. It was a project that took his Eagle Scout leader's by surprise.

"Most of the scouts do projects like building benches for parks; I wanted to do a different project. The Eagle Scout leaders were surprised. I had to include more details and information about my project than is normally asked for," Elliott said.

Elliott had been thinking about being more involved with the Babcock Center since he helped clean the Babcock Center as part of a service learning project.

Elliott began raising $700 for the Wii systems, but luckily the game systems were donated to the Babcock Center. Douglas donated the $700 the Babcock Center. Once he had the Wii systems, he introduced the bowling game to the men from two of the Babcock Center's facilities, Meadowlark and Cranbrook. He taught the men how to use the system.

"I got a real positive reaction. Some of the men had never bowled before," Elliott said.

When he went back two weeks later, the men had a better handle on how to use the Wii game system. As a reward, he chose to take the men to the Anchor Lanes Bowling Alley to use what they had learned. All the men who participated in the bowling received a trophy.

"For young men, they showed phenomenal patience with the men. We couldn't ask for a better group of kids," Carrie Deaton, director of Babcock Center Foundation, said of Elliott and his friends that helped him with the project. "It is a fabulous idea that has long reaching affects. Not only do the men have access to the Wii's now at anytime, but the interaction with the young men meant a lot to them."

"I hope to do more projects in the future with the Babcock Center. It was a very positive experience, I had a lot of fun," Elliott said.