My Eagle Project: The process

An Eagle project is the culmination of a Scout’s ability to plan, manage, and lead a project that is of service to his/her community. This project, for me, was easily one of the hardest things I have ever done, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the help of dozens of volunteers.

The Plan

Every project starts with an idea. Who should I help? What can I do? These are some of the hardest questions to answer in the entire project, as sometimes, finding a suitable beneficiary for the project can be borderline difficult. However, this process was expedited for me due to my contact with the food pantry previously. I learned about the pantry during COVID and spent an hour a week throughout 8th-grade packaging beans and rice for the pantry and helping transport materials. I knew I wanted to help them, but with what? After some brainstorming and inquiry, I decided to renovate a new cabinet for them, as their old cabinet was deteriorating.

Getting Approval

Then came the approval process. Although I had the idea in mind, the approval process took a significant amount of time and effort to nail down. I submitted a draft of what I had to the district for approval, but the project was missing a lot of information regarding funding, volunteers, and the process of building, and the application was turned down. I redid the application process with thorough spreadsheets and documentation, and it was submitted the second time around. By this point, I had already poured 10-20 hours into planning for the project.

Planning

Once the project was approved, the formal work was done; I then started to plan for the finished cabinet and fundraise the money. The fundraising was done via GoFundMe and a small yard sale. Then, I was able to design blueprints during the design phase; still, this process was the most time-consuming part of the entire project, more than building the cabinet itself. I had to draw detailed blueprints for the cabinet, how to put it together, what paint to use, what wood to use, what day to build on, what times people were available, etc. I spent upwards of 20 hours on planning alone.

Putting it all together

After I had planned out times and dates and completed the blueprints, the rest was a piece of cake. I still had to spend a lot of time managing volunteers, about 20 hours, but it happened over multiple days and it was relatively easy. Because the plan was laid out, I just had to follow the plan and make sure that I enforced it effectively. We started by cutting plywood to the right size, sanding it, and painting it on the first two days. In the last three days, we removed the existing cabinet, built the new cabinet, and touched up the cabinet. Installing the back wall was easily the hardest part of the labor, as we had to create a base and orient the large 8x8 foot panel so it would fit in place; after this, it all started falling into place. The final product was a painted and touched-up 8x8x2ft cabinet, which fits in perfectly with the existing space.

All in all, the project took over 200 volunteers of volunteer work, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication of the volunteers. I would like to thank Mr. Kraut, an engineer, who is well-versed in woodwork and was a massive help throughout the entire project. I would also like to thank adults Mr. Wellins, Mr. Chinchilla, and Mr. Kellogg and Scouts Dustin, Arumin, Lucas, Aiden, and many more for their assistance throughout the entire project. An Eagle project is never a one-person project, and it takes effort from everyone involved to make the project the best it can be.

I am grateful that I had an opportunity to lead this project. It taught me a lot about leadership and planning and it was a very valuable experience. These skills I learned throughout this project will help me for the rest of my life.