Garden’s Gate receives big assist from Eagle candidate

Eagle Scout candidate Avery Morgan (front) with his volunteer work crew

Avery Morgan, 14, joined Cub Scouts in first grade and is presently a Life Scout. He has one more rank to go — that of Eagle Scout.

“My father was an Eagle Scout,” he said recently. “I want to become an Eagle Scout.”

Eagle Scout is the highest rank in scouting. To achieve that honor, candidates must complete a service project that gives them the opportunity to give back to their community while developing leadership skills. When it came to creating his service project, Morgan knew what he wanted to do.

“I like making stuff out of wood,” he said. “I thought it would be cool to make benches for the high school. My Eagle mentor got in contact with the high school. I was interested in helping out on their project.”

The benches that Morgan made and donated are helping to complete the Garden’s Gate Project, established by Canton High School adjustment counselor Donna Creed Bauman. Following the renovation of the high school, Bauman saw a need to develop the unfinished courtyard spaces outside the gym, library, art department, life skills department, and guidance office. In 2011, she received a $500 grant from the Paul Matthews Foundation and the support of the School Committee to start a three-phase project that would result in outdoor classroom space and a potential gardening project.

The work of the first phase — the cleanup and landscaping of the art department courtyard — is underway, and the installation of Morgan’s benches outside the library on Saturday, June 21, as well as the removal of weeds and dead plants outside the gymnasium entrance that his volunteer group undertook completed the work of the second phase.

“Avery approached us,” Bauman said. “He had to do an Eagle project. We met two or three times, he set up a budget, and he came in with his crew. It was amazing.”

Morgan was a student at the Hansen School for grades one through five and then moved on to the Galvin Middle School for sixth grade. He transferred to the Carroll School in Lincoln for seventh and eighth grades. In the fall he will be a freshman at the Dublin School in Dublin, New Hampshire.

In an email, his mother, Deb Morgan, explained that in fifth grade Avery moved up to the Boy Scouts from the Cub Scouts with two other students. Dave Emhardt helped Avery secure the project at Canton High, and Selectman Sal Salvatori is serving as his Eagle Scout mentor. Avery is a member of Troop 77.

“He obtained his cedar wood from Liberty Cedar in Rhode Island,” his mother wrote. “Since he was doing an Eagle Scout project, they gave him a generous discount on the wood, as cedar is expensive. Cedar’s natural resistance to rot, etc. makes it an ideal wood for outdoor benches. The wood was delivered directly to our house in Canton where Avery, his dad, Fritz, his younger brother, Rylan, and his grandfather Mark Bellinger of Pittsburgh, PA, cut the wood to get it ready for assembly.”

The benches are four feet long. Avery and his volunteer group took the wood and other materials to CHS on June 21 and worked in shifts from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The benches were assembled and then seven of them were installed in a semi-circle just outside the library doors that lead to the courtyard. Avery used a long, thin wire to secure them in place. The remaining bench is set along a wall inside the doors.

After installing the benches, the group cleaned and prepared the area near the gym. Bauman has asked CHS faculty to donate perennials to create a new garden in the space.

The day before doing the work at CHS, Avery underwent knee surgery and showed up on Saturday morning on crutches.

“He orchestrated everything from a table. He deserves all the credit,” Bauman said of Avery’s efforts. “He and his family did an amazing job, and the whole troop [too].”

In addition to his parents, brother and grandfather, the members of Avery’s volunteer group were Michael Salvatori, Andrew Salvatori, Sal Salvatori, Jonathan Nunes, Dave Emhardt, Josh Cohen, Kevin Morrison, Ron Larsen, Caleb Morrison, Lucca Terenzio, Kyle Morrison, Theo Bollenbach, Hernan Vicente Chappuzeau, Steve Likos, Donna Creed Bauman, Zac Jones, Matthew Larsen, Aidan Lee, Charlie Emhardt, Adam Feeney, Amy Salvatori, and Danny Williams.

For more information on the Garden’s Gate Project, go to www.edline.net/pages/cantonhighschool/community/gardensgateproject.

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Posted by Mary Ann Price on Aug 10 2014. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.