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EDUCATION
Local Brookhaven scout troop treks through pandemic year
BY SAMMIE PURCELL
A local teen led part of his Scouts BSA
troop in building an information kiosk
in Brookhaven Park, one of many Eagle
Scout projects the troop has seen come
to pass over a difficult, pandemic-filled 18
months.
Chase Stewart - a 15-year-old sopho
more at Marist School and a member of
Troop 379 out of Brookhaven’s St. Mar
tin’s Episcopal Church - chose the kiosk
as his project, leading him one step closer
to achieving the highest rank a scout can
muster - Eagle Scout.
“[Brookhaven Park] wanted a kiosk to
display information and help visitors in
the park,” Stewart said. “So I just tried to
fill that need.”
Eagle Scout is the highest rank Scouts
BSA - a year round program for 11 to
17-year-old boys and girls - offers to its
members. To reach the Eagle Scout lev
el, members have to pass through six oth
er ranks: Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class,
First Class, Star, and Life.
Stewart hasn’t quite made it to his Ea
gle Scout rank yet, but with this Eagle
Scout project, one of the big objectives is
out of the way. On Sept. 12, he and a few
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Brookhaven Councilmember Madeleine Simmons with Chase Stewart (second
from left) and the other scouts in front of the Brookhaven Park kiosk.
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“It will be
interesting getting
to interact with mg
scout troop again
and see how theg
have progressed.
I definitely am
interested in what
type of projects
they did in this
post-pandemic
environment.”
Sam Shapira
other scouts headed out to Brookhaven
Park to work on the kiosk. But the work
actually started long before that.
Stewart said he spent months do
ing prep work like cutting wood, drilling
holes, and taking measurements for the
kiosk. When the day of the build finally
came, he instructed the other scouts on
how to put the structure together.
“We’re not really supposed to be doing
the work, we’re supposed to be helping
guide others to complete it,” Stewart said
of leading an Eagle Scout project. “We do
the prep work, they do the work on build
ing day.”
The Brookhaven Park kiosk is one
of many projects members of Troop 379
have worked on over the past 18 months,
said Assistant Scoutmaster Jay Schmitt.
Other Eagle Scout projects include anoth
er information kiosk at a park in Sandy
Springs, a shade structure at Atlanta’s Em-
maus House, and a sustainable garden at
the Peachtree Creek Greenway.
“You need a project, we’re there,”
Schmitt said.
All of these projects and all of the work
to become an Eagle Scout - which in
cludes earning a total of 21 merit badges
and holding a leadership position - leads
up to the main event: the Eagle Court of
Honor, which was held at Blackburn Park
on Oct. 31.
While Stewart didn’t participate this
year, Schmitt said this year’s ceremony
honored 13 scouts for achieving the high
est rank possible. Schmitt said normal
ly a ceremony would only recognize two
or three, but because of the ongoing CO-
VID-19 pandemic, more scouts have had
time to earn the honor.
“It’s really a culmination of what is,
at a minimum, four years of work,” said
20 DECEMBER 2021| REPORTER NEWSPAPERS
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