Vishnudev Jeyaraj, Eagle Scout
Total Volunteer Hours: 122
My project focused on three gardens in front of Oak Hill Elementary School. The gardens were weeded after which plants including Daffoldils, Tulips, Black-eyed Susans, a Dogwood tree, and Virginia Blue Bells were planted throughout the gardens. Then the gardens were edged with landscaping rocks and mulched. These gardens previously looked worn down and overgrown with weeds. They also did not have proper edging and it was difficult to distinguish where the gardens began and ended. This project not only solved these problems, but also helped the gardens stand out and give the front of Oak Hill Elementary School a more distinct look.
Observations and Challenges
The planting of plants went very well, mainly because it was an easy task and not much explaining was necessary for volunteers to understand what had to be done. Edging the gardens with landscaping rocks also went very well as it was also an easy task and volunteers completed it fairly quickly.
It was challenging to keep volunteers focused on a particular task. For example, weeding was projected to take around 2 hours to complete. However, some volunteers were getting bored or tired since weeding can be a tedious task. Because of this, weeding took a total of 3 hours to complete. It was also challenging to remove the large rocks that were already edging the gardens. These rocks were extremely heavy and required 2-4 Scouts to move depending on the rock. Because of this, rock removal took longer than expected.
Changes (from original proposal)
The main change I made was the method of obtaining the rocks being used for the project and type of rocks being used. The rocks were scheduled for delivery on the first day of my project, however due to an unexplained schedule change, the delivery date was changed to September 16th. Because of this, the rocks has to be collected from the store and transported to the project site. I initially planned to use large random rocks, similar to the existing rocks edging a part of two of the three gardens. I had to change these large random rocks into smaller landscaping rocks. The reason I had to switch the rocks was due to the large random rocks not being available at the location I was planning on getting them from. I also changed the method of obtaining the mulch and the number of bags of mulch necessary to cover the entire area of the gardens. I was initially planning to get the mulch from the county for free. However, due to difficulties, this plan was no longer a viable plan, and mulch had to be bought from Lowe’s. I initially planned to get 8 bags of mulch, but as volunteers were mulching, it became apparent that more bags of mulch were necessary and 5 more bags of mulch were bought to fully cover the gardens.
Leadership
I demonstrated leadership in many ways including splitting up volunteers into groups, giving each group a particular task, then explaining how to do each task. I also demonstrated leadership by making quick decisions such as deciding that more bags of mulch were needed.
The most difficult part about being a leader is making sure everyone is cleared on their assigned task and following up on how each task is going. There were many times that I felt overwhelmed when many volunteers were asking me questions about their task all at once. It was also difficult to give everyone a task to do since some volunteers wanted another task or was finished earlier than expected with their task.
The most rewarding part about being a leader was to see how the entire project played out and how everything fit together as I had envisioned. It was very satisfying to see how the project changed the gardens. It was also very rewarding when passerby cars complimented us about the work and how the gardens looked much better.
As a leader, I learned that a leader must be calm and assess situations and answer any questions without panicking or getting frustrated. I also learned how to push volunteers to work when necessary when they were bored. In terms of leadership I further. developed my decision making skills. For example, when faced with the problem of the existing rocks being extremely heavy, I assigned the task to older scouts and adults, who were most likely most capable of successfully and efficiently moving the rocks.
Photos during the project + after