Suffolk resident Jacob Rannings recently transformed the outside of the Children’s Center in Suffolk to a colorful, welcoming entrance for the staff, parents and children who attend the center.

Rannings cleaned, updated and painted the entrance as his Eagle Scout project. A senior at Lakeland High School, Rannings has been in Boy Scouts since he was in third grade at Southwestern Elementary.

“I guess I picked it because I like children, and that place needed it the most out of all the places I looked at,” he said. “I wanted to make that place brighter.”

The daycare and preschool facility is located on 300 Executive Drive. With financial support from the Bethlehem Ruritans and the Children’s Center, plants donated by Johnson’s Gardens and manual labor from the rest of Troop 30 and their parents, Rannings completed the project, which required 125 hours from planning to completion.

The project included pressure washing the handicap access ramps, adding lattice work to a handicap ramp, raking the yard and playground of leaves and debris, planting shrubs, flowers and bulbs in a flower box, repairing and painting the concrete on the flower box, adding a bird feeder pole and making colorful planter boxes to look like children’s blocks. The final touch was adding painted handprints of the children to the front of the flower box.

“I think it turned out real good,” Rannings said. “I like it. They liked it.”

“I feel good that it’s finally over. It took a good long time.”