Community Service Paper
For my community service project this year, I decided to, in a way, kill two birds with one stone in a way. I have combined both my senior community service project with my Eagle Scout community service project. For my project, I researched the wildlife, mainly the birds that live up at Fernandez Ranch, a beautiful new 702 acre addition to the Muir Heritage Land Trust (see chart). The ranch will open to the public for recreational use June 6th. After all of the research was done on the types of birds/owls/bats living there, I then proceeded to look up and find the best types of bird and owl houses and bat boxes that would help out the most up at the ranch. After all the research was done on the boxes and the designs were finalized, the hard part of the project began. The catch with all Eagle Scout projects is that all materials used in the project must be donated to the cause, we could not buy anything. I then started to go around to the local Ace™ stores and ask a couple of my dad’s friends who are in the construction business, but times have been tough and with the economy the way it is, they couldn’t help as much as I thought they could. Out of desperation, I put on my uniform and headed over to the Home Depot® in 
we worked a little later than I had planned but we got the construction part done in just one day other than the 3 days that I had originally planned. When it came time to install the boxes though, not only was it the only sunny day that entire week, but also everyone who I had asked to help then was busy with other things to do, so it ended up being my mom and dad, myself and Beth, the representative who I had been working with at MHLT. We traversed the mud and the hills, and we managed to install all 14 birdhouses and eventually 1 bat box. I had originally planned 14 bird houses, 2 bat boxes, and 3 owl houses, but the bat boxes are very intricate and hard to make, and the owl houses would have needed to have been on a 20 ft pole, and that would have been too much to do. By the time all of this was completed, it was January 23rd, two days before my 18th birthday, and the deadline by which eagle projects must be submitted by in order to be eligible for the eagle board of review (which I passed, piece of cake). My original idea was to finish the project in the fall, still having it be able to count towards my senior project, but I wanted to be able to experience as much of scouting as I could, turning in my binder just hours before the start of January 25th, my birthday. What was amazing was that over this whole process, I was able to get in 41.5 hours for myself, and about 78 hours of volunteer time put into the project, giving me more than enough to be passed the 100-hour minimum. Thinking back on this whole process, I have learned one thing that I cannot only apply to school, but the rest of my life and that lesson is that procrastination does not always work. There are many topics small topics that can be taken from this project, the biggest is the preservation of wildlife habitats. This has always been a problem in this country, destroying habitats in the name of the “greater good”, but just how much can big companies justify it this way before they realize just what they are doing to the natural wildlife in the area. This has been going on for years and years ever since the Louisiana Purchase convinced people to go west, and in turn eventually exploit the land for personal gain. The first major player in wildlife conservation was John Muir, who managed to get Theodore Roosevelt to go camping with him, and show him “The Real Yosemite”. After this outing with Muir, Roosevelt then created the US National Park Service, to protect lands like Yosemite and others around the country. In more recent years, private organizations like the Muir Heritage Land Trust have themselves purchased and maintained areas like the Fernandez ranch and their other holdings around the bay and tried to recreate the magic of Yosemite in our local area. This massive job seems like a relatively easy one when thinking of the national park service, but for an organization like the Muir Heritage Land Trust, it is not so easy. In fact, you can donate now by clicking here to go to the homepage and clicking on the picture of Gary Bogue, who openly supports the efforts of the organization in his column in the Contra Costa Times. The other day when installing the huge bat box, Beth and I were talking and ever since Gary Bogue has been mentioning them in his article, the land trust has gone from getting 10-20 donations a week to 50 or so a day. Every penny helps them do their jobs, keep these lands, over 1800 acres, pristine, and preserve the wildlife there. There are not many organizations like the MHLT around here, and we should do whatever we can to help preserve these open spaces for the sake of the wildlife, for inspiration for art projects, or for day hikes like in boy scouts.
Another great thing I learned from doing this project is the significance of the Boy Scout program. I have been with the BSA since 1st grade in tiger cubs. I made it through cub scouts and at the end of 5th grade I made the transition to boy scouts. My 8 years with Troop 241, based out of the multipurpose room at Stanley Mount Whitney . I have also gone to Yosemite national park, the same area where John Muir took Theodore Roosevelt and convinced him that this beautiful land could only be saved through some sort of government intervention, or witch the result was the National park service. I have personally had such a great time with my troop and Boy scouts, I am even going to stay on with my troop after my 18th birthday and become an assistant scout master to teach the same values that I have learned from my vast experience camping and having fun in scouts. Through out the country, only about 2-4% of all Boy Scouts reach the rank of Eagle, and I am very proud to become one of the few that has achieved this rank.
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