Greg Sweeney, AS '09, has won two prestigious national awards for community service for founding Cub Scout Pack 506, the first scout pack on the East Coast exclusively for homeless boys. And, to top it all off, he was featured as the "Person of the Week" on Oct. 14 by ABC-TV's World News Tonight.

Sweeney is one of only five young adults chosen nationwide to receive a 2005 National Caring Award and scholarship from the Caring Institute and one of 10 to receive a $5,000 Yoshiyama Award for Exemplary Service to the Community from the Hitachi Foundation.

The National Caring award is given to five persons from ages 9 to 99 who best personify caring and would be worthy role models for others. The Yoshiyama Award goes to 10 high school seniors across the nation based upon service to the community, the opportunity for longer-term social change and the relevance of these activities to addressing profound community and societal problems.

Pack 506 began in Wilmington, Del., when Sweeney was 12 and encountered children in homeless shelters through an Eagle Scout project being conducted by his brother, Matt Sweeney, BE '07. When Greg Sweeney saw the children in the shelters, most of whom came from single-parent families with no male role model, and heard someone say what great role models the scouts made for the boys, he said he thought it would be a good idea to start a Cub Scout pack for them.

He approached Brother Ronald Giannone, director of the Ministry of Caring in Wilmington, who gave him a $200 budget and a meeting place and asked a volunteer to place ads in church bulletins.

Sweeney was able to pull together the people and resources needed to start Pack 506, which today serves 16 to 18 homeless boys. "For most of them, it is the only thing they can count on in their lives. It gives them consistency," Sweeney says.

Over the years, he has helped obtain donated T-shirts for the youngsters, Boy Scout Council scholarships for them to attend summer camp, free transportation to their weekly pack meetings and a tutoring service for those needing extra help in school.

More than 100 homeless boys have become Cub Scouts through Pack 506, which now has 12 volunteers.