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On his way to Eagle Scout

News | October 22, 2018

Collin Burnett is pretty familiar with the St. Paul community garden. The 15-year-old from Davenport likes to help out in the garden whenever possible.

When it came time to choose a project to become an Eagle Scout, Collin knew who to talk with – Matt Schroeder, who leads the garden team.

“I came up with this idea when I was talking with Matt Schroeder about the community garden,” Collin said. “He told me that we used some of the green house facilities at Vander Veer Park. So I thought it would be a good idea to build a place to grow plants so they wouldn’t have to rent space from Vander Veer.”

As a bonus, Collin thought adding in a rainwater collection system would also help keep the garden well-hydrated during the summer.

He came up with a plan (see that plan here).

On the garage behind the 2025 Main Street house, a rain barrel and new gutter will catch rain water. At the garage on the south end of the alleyway, two rain barrels will collect water there. A few windows and a door frame have new paint, too. In the south garage, an old bench was demolished – with the wood being reused in the plant-starting stands. Three will be built. Fluorescent light fixtures recovered from demolition work at Geneseo High School will provide the indoor sunshine.

Collin has learned about the art of leading people as part of this project, he said. It’s also worth a mention that this is not the only Boy Scout-related project he has completed for the garden. He built a composting area a few years ago.

“Now the community garden will be able to start and grow plants indoors, and they can collect water from when it rains.”

Matt is thrilled with the project.

“The plant growing stations will be a great place for us to maintain our plants prior to the spring planting time each year. With lots of space and light this will allow us to start many different plants to be used in the St. Paul gardens,” he said. “In addition to this, Collin saw a need for adding gutters and rain barrels to both of the garage locations near our garden areas. This will be extremely beneficial in recycling rain water and watering many of the plant bed areas.  Collin and his team did a tremendous job and we are all very impressed and grateful for his hard work and efforts.  Thanks Collin!”

 

2 Comments on “On his way to Eagle Scout”

  • Georgeann Kreiter

    October 26, 2018 at 10:14 am

    Wow, this is a great project! Well carried out, Collin!

  • Audrey Keeney

    October 25, 2018 at 4:16 pm

    Thank you, Collin, for doing this wonderful Eagle Project. This is something that will be used by the gardener for years to come. I know you have gained much through working on this project.

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