Ben Wolsborn, Eagle Scout
Total Volunteer Hours Worked: 72
For my Eagle Scout project, I worked with the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. I interviewed 10 Veterans and recorded their stories about serving in the military. I submitted the interviews to the Library of Congress so they can be saved and shared with others. This project helps honor Veterans and enables future generations learn from their experiences.
Observations and Challenges
Reaching the time threshhold of 30 minutes per interview was something I found that went well. During these interviews I caught myself listening deeply to the Veterans stories, and I know the interviewers got a lot out of the experience as well. While scheduling was always a challenge, the Veterans were very respectful about making it to the interviews on time, that went well also. Additionally the use of Zoom and its recording capability went very well, it was relatively easy to use and organize the videos. The drop off at the Library of Congress went well and was very rewarding as they were very grateful for the recordings.
Parts of the project that were challenging was scheduling with both the interviewers and Veterans. In order to conduct an interview I had to clarify a date/time with both the Veteran and the interviewer which was sometimes a hassle as one specific time could work for the Veteran, but the interviewer would not be available. This caused me to either reschedule the interview or substitute in a new interviewer. Also challenging was the amount of paper work and forms required to accompany each interview.
Changes (from original proposal)
Once I started the interviews it became clear that I needed to change my strategy for the interviews based upon how fast or slow the Veterans talked. During the interviews I navigated the interviewer through the questions, if I noticed the interview was going fast I wrote down some more questions for the interviewers to ask as well if I noticed the interview going slow I crossed out some unnecessary questions.
Leadership
I demonstrated leadership throughout my project by creating and hosting a training session for my interviewers, navigating the interviewers questions throughout the interview, and working with both the Veterans and interviewers for scheduling and required forms. For the training session I displayed and presented a slideshow of what this project requires from them, do’s and don’ts, and what they need to do. During the interviews I provided each interviewer with a page of sample questions they’ll need to read off to the Veteran, however every interview is different, so depending on the speed of which the interview is going I would either come up with more questions or cross out certain ones to assist the interviewers.
An aspect of leadership that was challenging for me during the project was working with both the Veterans and interviewers at the same time. Ensuring that certain time worked for both a Veteran and an interviewer did not always go smoothly and sometimes caused an interview to happen way later than planned.
The most rewarding part of my project and being the leader is the feedback and praise I received from the Veterans about how meaningful the project was to them. Many of them shared the thoughts on the project, calling it wonderful and thoughtful, they were as well very appreciative to have participated in the project which made me glad that my project is benefitting people already.
I learned that I am capable of leading more than a couple people at a time. I also learned that leadership definitely requires patience, which was tested throughout the whole trials of scheduling. In addition, I learned how to coach and lead the interviewers particulary when it was their first time leading an interview.
During project + results