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The Eagle Scout is the highest rank of scouting, and requires a long and intense journey in order to achieve. I received the Eagle Scout award in November of 2022, and have been in scouting since the age of 7. In order to achieve this rank, one of the main requirements is a large service project for your community, in which the candidate leads a group of people in order to complete the project
What was my project?
Fire Hydrants. Looking around my community, I noticed that some older neighborhoods had fire hydrants covered in rust, flaky paint, dirt, and debris. After some further investigating, I discovered that there was only one crew to solve this for the entire city, and they had multiple other responsibilities, meaning that hydrants like this often went unnoticed.Â
I decided to reach out to our local water department to see if they would be interested in working with me to help out our community, and they said yes! I got the chance to meet with them in person to talk about the problem, as well as my proposed solution. In this meeting, they gave me some pre-requisites, and allowed me to get the ball rolling on the project.
The next step was to settle on a location. I drove around to many neighborhoods, looking at multiple factors such as number of hydrants, quality, and who it effected. I finally decided on the Northridge neighborhood in Brownsburg. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods and had the worst hydrants by far. It was extremely beautiful besides the hydrants, and the visibility of the hydrants was a large problem. Because of the faded paint, they were hard to see, which could potentially cost lives in the case of a fire.
Picture of the Northridge Neighborhood, in Brownsburg IN
From here, planning began! I started by mapping all of the fire hydrants out, and splitting them into routes to be painted by volunteers.
I then created a proposal to give to my local scouting board, detailing all of the initial information about the project, how its laid out, and how checklist items are being met.
BROWNSBURG WATER UTILITIES VOLUNTEER PROJECT APPLICATION.docxI also filled out a proposal for the Town of Brownsburg, giving details on the project, the effect on the community, and more.
Once I had all of the required approval, I needed to create a more detailed description of the project, with a hour by hour plan, safety standards, and a complete budget and list of materials. I also needed to find sponsors for the project, and a way to source the paint.
Volunteer Time!
Volunteer Time!
Now that I had a completed plan for the project, I needed to gather volunteers. I reached out to friends, family, my scouting troop, and the community.
Project Day!
Project Day!
The project was a massive success, with 25 volunteers supporting the project, and a total of 66 fire hydrants painted. We split into 3 groups and took a wire brush and completely cleaned all of the hydrants, and then we covered them in non-rust, thick enamel paint.
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