While many were attending graduation ceremonies and parties this past weekend, a group of Devine Boy Scouts and their families completed Zachary Richard’s Eagle project, a Memorial Garden at Devine First Baptist Church. The garden is located in front of the Sadler Youth Annex, which is directly behind the church on W. Benton Avenue. The scouts met at 6 pm on Friday night and worked several hours clearing out old bushes, measuring out the garden area, and preparing the soil. They returned Saturday morning at 8:30 am to complete the project, and worked throughout the day until the project was done.
The idea was to create a peaceful, prayerful place of remembrance and with that in mind there are two garden benches to provide places to sit and reflect.
The Ramirez Family placed the first memorial stone, in memory of Alyssa.
Devine boy scouts have now completed three Eagle projects for the community this year. In addition to this Memorial Garden, Jacob Salazar placed the new cross in front of St Josephs Church, and Connor O’Neal painted the interior of the VFW. The Eagle project is a large scale community service project in which a scout identifies a need, plans, fundraises, and executes the project. Scouts have to appear before an Eagle Board to get approval of their proposed project before they can begin any fundraising or work. Scouts also have to present the outcome of the project to an Eagle Board after it is completed. The actual project can only be done by a scout who has achieved the rank of Life Scout, and has already earned most or all of the 13 Eagle-specific merit badges, and at least 8 other badges. They have to be active in scouting for years in order to complete the criteria. Only 4% of boys in scouting will achieve the rank of Eagle.
