Ok, I'm 17, a life scout, I only have 5 more merit badges, My Birthday is June 4th, and I have no clue what I'm doing for an eagle project. The requirements are fairly simple: it needs to take at least 100 man hours, I must be able to defend it as a service to the community, It has to be done at least 2 weeks before my birthday (so I have time to finish the paper work), and I need to get my troop committee to approve it. Does any one around here have any good ideas on what I can do.
Stryker
Posted by HollowEarth (Member # 2586) on :
Have you looked for a project yet? Asked yours or other church, other organizations? Just trying to make something up will be hard unless you plan on funding it yourself.
Oh, and I would turn down anything that will involve raising the funds as well as the project itself.
You'd better get moving. It takes longer than you think.
Posted by Jutsa Notha Name (Member # 4485) on :
Go to your local hospital or clinic and ask them if they do specific volunteer programs. Would that count?
Posted by J T Stryker (Member # 6300) on :
As far as funding the project, that's an easy one, Lowes will donate any and all materials needed for any eagle project (they use it as a tax deduction). And I'm afraid that volunteering at a hospital won't count.
Posted by Richard Berg (Member # 133) on :
My project was to wire every classroom in an elementary school with CAT5. You're probably about a decade too late to do so in most schools...maybe not the inner city, but it would be kind of a slap in the face if they didn't have the hardware to take advantage of it. Just throwing out there the wide variety of possibilities...
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
This one's easy. Find the most run-down park in your city (or close to your home, or whatever) and fix it up.
Lowes has: paint, wood chips/mulch for under swings and other equipment, replacement parts for playground equipment, etc.
If the playground in question doesn't provide you with enough hours, I'd be willing to bet there are other parks closeby...
And, if there's no park nearby, you could ask your local government office to donate some to the project, or find the owner of an empty lot (think: such an owner is paying property tax, for a property he may or may not want, and could use the donation as a tax write off.)
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
I'm just morbidly curious as to whether the Google ad for this page offered "1,000s of Eagle Projects for sale". YOu know, like the add for essays.
Posted by docmagik (Member # 1131) on :
For my project, we did magic shows in the children's wards of all the local hospitals.
It was a blast.
Posted by Insanity Plea (Member # 2053) on :
whatever you do...don't do this Satyagraha
Posted by Jacare Sorridente (Member # 1906) on :
The play ground idea is a good one.
You could also try one of the following:
1) Organize a week-long food drive at one or more of the local schools (elementary schools are best). Offer a pizza party or something similar to the class that brings the most items. Get a local restaurant to donate the pizzas.
2) Contact the local parks/ forest service. They almost always have a lot of good projects you could work on. Things like clearing overgrown trails, fixing up dilapidated camp areas etc.
3) Identify a widow/elderly couple/ needy family that owns a dilapidated home (you could talk to local church leaders, neighbors, etc to find this person). Get material donated by Lowes and do the landscaping, paint the house inside and out, clean etc.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Most of the scouts around here usually have Eagle projects that have to do with parks -- like cleaning up parks, or making landscaped "entrance" signs to small towns, etc.
But this kid did something a little different:
quote:Source: Judy DeLongo Jacobs/The Wichita Eagle How much are 1 million aluminum cans worth?In dollars, about $10,000; to Bryan Schiffelbein the rank of Eagle Scout.In May, Bryan, 14, decided to earn his Eagle Scout award by collecting a million cans "because it was different and it was something to help the tornado victims."As of last week, he had only 1,000 cans from neighbors and his parents' co-workers. But he hopes people in Wichita and Derby will help him meet his goal by Saturday.
(I couldn't copy the entire article without paying for it)
Try to think of something unique and unusual that needs to be done -- collect food for the local food bank; help the homeless, whatever.
Farmgirl
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
I cleaned out a neglected Cemetary. The city had a problem with a cemetary that was completely overgrown. So bad, in fact, that from the sidwalk you couldn't even tell it was a cemetary. It used to be a city lot that someone in the 40's divided and sold as plots. Basically, the owners of the land were "residing" on it, and no one living would claim responsibility. This was a great project because I got the city to provide a huge dumpster, I got the men's group from my church to help (20 men x 2 5-hours weekend days = 200 man hours), and I got the women's group to provide lunch (additional man hours). We pulled 2 dumpster loads of trash and abandoned appliances,etc, out of the lot, trimmed back all the over-growth, and got a commitment from a church next door to the lot to take over maintenance after the hard part was done. This qualified for my Eagle Project, got me a meeting with the mayor of Norfolk, and the Mayor's Clean Community award (including an invite to an awards dinner where it was presented.)
I'm sure you have plenty of places in your community that could use a clean up. A park is a good idea, but so is any abandoned or neglected lot or troubled spot.
Another friend of mine designed and built a wheelchair ramp for the church for his Eagle Project.
Posted by UofUlawguy (Member # 5492) on :
I organized the other scouts in my troop to shovel the snow from the driveways of the widows in our neighborhood every time it snowed. We had a heavy snowfall that year, so we got plenty of hours in.
I found out that Nevada, where I live, has a really interesting program available for Eagle and other service projects. You can sign up to go out to old, abandoned mines and secure them to reduce the danger to the public, by making them inaccessible and putting up signs, fences, etc., warning people that there's a big hole in the ground. I think they assign you a few of them, and give you the supplies, and you take your fellow scouts out and get the job done. Apparently there are still hundred of these old mines (that the state knows about) that people are stumbling across all the time, and they present quite a hazard.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
KarlEd, I remember reading an article about the neglected cemetary. I grew up in Virginia Beach - when did you do this?
If Lowes is donating materials, there are lots of good ones. I know someone who did wheelchair ramps for people. Get a structural engineer signed on and get permission for him to do the inspections (or get the building inspector on board with speedy inspections). 3-5 ramps should be 100 hours easily. Maybe instead of houses you could do it to provide access to an otherwise inaccessible park, overlook, or other facility.
Another possibility is a foot bridge. I know someone who built a foot bridge that saved the residents of a mountain about a 2 mile detour to get to and from their house.
Let us know what you choose.
Dagonee
Posted by Julian Delphinki (Member # 6686) on :
I have an idea! Find the cure for cancer or Aids!
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Dag, I'm pretty sure it was in 1984, if my geezer memory isn't betraying me.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Sounds about right. Was it down near Granby Street?
To think, I heard about you in an oblique way 20 years ago.
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