In September, Mia R. became an Eagle Scout after completing her Eagle Scout Project that sought to improve the conditions of Sky Meadows State Park.
Mia is part of Troop 1865G, a unit from the Buke Lake District. Mia joined Scouting when she was 14, dedicating almost four years of participation before receiving her Eagle. As a Scout, Mia has earned over 40 merit badges, visited Philmont and works as a camp counselor at Camp Rodney.
“I really like Scouts and I’m really glad I got to be part of it,” Mia said.
The Sky Meadows State Park provided a program called Youth Conservation Corps that Mia participated in during 9th grade. With this opportunity, she formed connections from the park and reached out to them when she was ready to start her project. Mia had in mind that she wanted it to involve building, which led to the idea of building a trail.
The idea sparked because the park is well known for its astronomy program, so many visitors will park and walk 170 feet to reach the visitors center. Because these visitors walked along the road, it became a traffic hazard. She hoped the trail would provide a safer and more distinct place for visitors to walk on.
“They were having a lot of trouble with that and so they wanted to have the trail right now,” Mia said. “There was, in theory, a trail, but it was more just a grass path undistinguishable from the other grass that you were supposed to walk on, but you had no means of knowing to walk on it.”
With the help of her Troop, Mia dug out a trail, lined it with metal edging, put down landscaping fabric and covered it in gravel. Her project also consisted of installing two signposts and building a bench with her dad.
Mia spent 37 to 40 hours on her project and with her 37 volunteers, they totaled up to around 300 hours.
One challenge Mia faced was transportation because the park is 50 minutes away from her home. Despite this, she got her volunteers to meet at her house and carpool to the park together. Mia was also unsure if she would manage to get enough volunteers, but after reaching out to friends, she exceeded her expectations.
“I was constantly texting people, ‘hey can you be there?’” Mia said. “So, the fact we got 37, it’s kind of a miracle.”
Finding the funding for the project was another factor Mia had to consider. When she went to the Lowes in Gainesville, Virginia, they gave her the metal edging completely for free. The park also supplied the gravel, showing how large of a group effort it was to finish the project.
The project allowed Mia to learn how to communicate with adults, as well as continuing her leadership skills that she has learned from being Senior Patrol Leader. Mia joined Scouting to learn skills such as first aid but has recognized this skill as an ability to help others.
“I feel like maybe I wouldn’t have stopped on the street to help someone before I joined Scouts,” Mia said. “But now I definitely would, because I’ve learned a lot, and I think I’ve become a better person.” 
Yoi further honored Jacob by dedicating his Eagle Scout project to building a Memorial bike rack and repair station at Winston Churchill High School, the high school they both attended. This would reflect Jacob’s love for riding his bike and the high school since Jacob was the mascot for the Winston Churchill Bulldogs, causing people not to love him because he was the Bulldog but love the Bulldog because he was Jacob Cassell. These reasons solidified Yoi’s decision to make the high school the perfect place for the memorial.
To start his Eagle Project, he went to former Principal Heckert to get approval for the project, but once she left, he had to get approval from Mr. Taylor, who was coincidentally the principal of Yoi’s middle school. After his approval, he was sent to the PTSA to discuss funding. After going back and forth between the PTSA and the school, Yoi created a GoFundMe for his project, reaching the proposed $7,500 goal within 48 hours and ending with $9,333 from over 120 donors. After another back and forth with the county about where the building site would be and waiting for the county to collect bids for the project, the finish line was finally in sight for Yoi.
When asked what were some key lessons/skills he learned during his journey to complete his Eagle project, Shivam said, “Managing multiple people was a skill I didn’t think I would learn as much as I did on the day of the project. I had general plans for what people would work on, but on the actual day of the project there were more people than jobs, so I had to find out how to give everyone a task to do while not overcrowding any one area and reducing efficiency. I ended up having some people be extra quality checkers to make sure that certain pieces were assembled properly, which worked to give everyone a meaningful task.”
Lucas conducted his project on June 1st and 2nd, the first weekend, and June 14th and 15th, the second weekend. Both weekends were very successful. As Lucas states, “We successfully fed everyone at the shelter who wanted food and there was enough food left over for lunch the next day. I found good prices on bread, butter, and ground beef, so I wound up with extra money for fruit salad for the second weekend. Hungry Root sent us some free kiwi fruit in our family’s meal kits, so I threw that in. People at the shelter were really happy about the fruit, especially the kiwi.”
Lucas began his project on April 4, 2024, had his plans featured in an Arlington Connection and The Gazette Packet article in early June, then followed through and completed his project on June 15, 2024, after 132 hours. He completed his Eagle Board of Review on November 19, 2024.