St. Paul’s students involved in Boy Scouts and wanting to achieve Eagle Scout rank often decide to use that opportunity to leave their mark at St. Paul’s by doing their Eagle service project on campus in the form of a beautification project.

The Eagle service project, a crucial component of being an Eagle Scout, must show that the scout plans, organizes, and leads the task.

According to the Boy Scout Handbook, these scouts have to show leadership when completing the service for their community. This task shows that the Eagle Scout has great love for their community, and in this case their own school.

Some of the projects SPS Eagle Scout’s have worked on involve things students use every day when they come to school, including new picnic tables and benches along with many reforestation projects around campus.

“They do this wonderful service to enhance the beauty at the school, which shows that they really love this campus,” Trevor Watkins, Assistant Principal of SPS, said.

To plan an Eagle service project, the Boy Scout Handbook instructs, “While a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to any religious institution, any school, or your community. The project must benefit an organization other than Boy Scouting. The project plan must be approved by the organization benefiting from the effort, your Scoutmaster and troop committee, and the council or district before you start.”

The National Eagle Scout Association researched the total volunteer hours of the Eagle service projects ever done, and it came to more than 100 million hours of service. Each year, new Eagle Scouts are adding more than three million more hours.

“Eagle Scouts do their project at St. Paul’s because they have a special love and care about the well-being of the campus,” President/Principal Bro. Ray Bulliard, FSC, said.

In addition to the benches and picnic tables, various Eagle service projects done on campus have included the planting of gardens around the Ben Bragg memorial fountain and in the courtyard of the Retired Rrothers’ Residence, as well as the trees lining the fence of Hunter Stadium. Most recently, current SPS junior Lucas Waldron managed a crew of scouts to plant trees near the Briggs Assembly Center as part of his Eagle service project.

[photos by Dalton Mott]