Month: November 2020

Original article published by Colleen Harrington on The Scouter Digest (weownadventure.com).

weownadventure.com/eagle-project-helps-local-plant-nursery/

For my Eagle project, I built a work table and three planting beds for a local nursery called Earth Sangha. The Wild Plant Nursery is a resource for ecological restoration in the greater Washington, DC area. I chose this project because taking care of the environment is important to me. I had volunteered here before and wanted to help them out.

For the first part of my project, I built a work table. I got help from Michael’s Woodshop and Mr. Dave Schneeman to finalize blueprints. Scouts from Troops 1533G & 1533B came out to Camp Snyder and Michael’s Woodshop to help build it. The Wood Shop has a lot of tools, and Mr. Schneeman’s guidance was very helpful. The building because we had plenty of volunteers (18) and my blueprints worked great.

On our second weekend, we went to Earth Sangha. First, we cleared out the old work table and installed the new one. We removed the old planting beds and installed new ones. There were many volunteers (29), so our seven-hour workday became a five hour day, and we were able to install an extra planting bed.

My project taught me a lot about leadership. I used some of the skills I learned as my troop’s instructor and Troop Guide. I also had to learn how to recruit people and how to keep everyone busy. Now that my project is done, I am glad it went so well… it was also a lot of fun.

Michael’s Woodshop at Camp William B. Snyder is pleased to welcome its first two Youth Apprentices to the Woodshop Team. Brian Staton and Alexander Alvarez have recently completed training with their assigned mentor and are looking forward to providing assistance to the volunteer Shop Stewards during upcoming events. In particular, Brian and Alexander will be providing assistance during our upcoming PWD Days events where they will guide and assist Cub Scouts and parents through the car building process. In addition, they will be assisting during other shop activities such as Den activities, merit badge classes, and Eagle Scout projects.

The Youth Apprentice Program was designed to provide youth who have an interest in woodworking with the opportunity to further develop their woodworking and leadership skills. Youth will be trained on the setup, operation, and maintenance of many shop tools. In addition, they will have opportunities during shop activities to lead and assist youth and adults during projects and other shop events. The Youth Apprentice Program is open to all BSA registered youth who are 14 years old or older.

Michael’s Woodshop is maintained and operated by our volunteer Shop Stewards, Shop Assistants and now of course, our Youth Apprentices! As shop use and shop offerings expand, we are always looking to add more BSA registered adult leaders to our ranks. In addition, as female youth membership within NCAC grows, an increasing number of female youth are participating in our shop activities. As such, we are specifically seeking to add female adult leaders to our Team. Please assist us in this effort by sharing this request with those who may be interested.
For more information about the Youth Apprentice Program and other volunteer positions, please see the Volunteering section of the Michael’s Woodshop webpage or email the volunteer shop steward team at MichaelsWoodshop.CWBS@gmail.com