“The School has done a lot for me, and I wanted to give something back,” Ryan said.

“Because of everything the School has done for me,” Jeff said, “it was an easy decision.”

What the Teti brothers have done is transform two overlooked, and in one case forgotten, areas of campus into beautiful spaces of reflection and inspiration. Ryan turned what was once the changing room for swimming in Black Friar Pond into a new outdoor classroom, and Jeff gave St. Rita’ Grotto in front of Austin Hall a major makeover. Both of these projects fulfilled a requirement in their quests to become an Eagle Scout.

Ryan came up with his idea after taking Mr. Gary DiEnna’s biology class, which often involved exploring the wooded area around the pond.

“I thought it would be better to meet right in the woods, so Mr. DiEnna could point things out as he was talking," Ryan said.

Jeff’s inspiration came first from driving by the grotto every day and noticing it needed work.

“There was a crack in the cement base, the hand on the statue was broken, one of the angel’s wings was broken, the light didn’t work and the garden was in bad shape,” Jeff related.

But after working on the project and investigating St. Rita, the project took on more significance for Jeff.

“St. Rita had an interesting life,” he said, “and I found out she is the patron saint of impossible causes.”

The brothers probably both felt that their efforts fell into that category at some point, because neither realized how complex the projects would turn out to be.

“The site was covered in dirt and brush, a tree was growing right through the broken concrete floor, and there were holes throughout the walls,” Ryan said about the classroom. “We cut down the tree and sawed down the stump. We removed the brush and dirt, mortared the holes in the wall and then stuccoed and painted them, and then covered the concrete slab in mulch. We built the four benches at my house, and installed them with metal anchors and chains.”

For Jeff, the hardest part was installing a new flagstone path from the driveway to the grotto.

“I give landscapers a lot of credit,” he said. “We had to level the ground, but make enough of a grade so that the water would run off the path. We also had to make sure that the maintenance guys could get a lawnmower over it without cracking the stone.”

In addition to the path, Jeff put in new lighting, power-washed the grotto, cleaned the statues with chemical cleaner, used a jackhammer to remove the old concrete base and installed new flagstone flooring, and put in a new garden, stone benches and stone potters.

The brothers turned to their Scout Troop and their dad, Lou Teti P’11’11, for help with these labor-intensive tasks. The brothers have been involved in scouting since the sixth grade, and have stuck with it, in large part, because the group of friends in the troop has stayed together.

Both brothers said that while his project was more complicated than he thought it would be, it turned out better than he expected – with a lot of help from family and friends.