Eagle Scout project focused on sprucing up garden

In the Boy Scouts of America program, Eagle Scout projects stand out from other activities for the amount of planning and coordination the Scout brings to the community through his service.

And for JJ Aragon, a 17-year-old senior at Carson High School, the project involved 70 man hours of work in addition to the preliminary planning for refurbishing the plots at Carson City's Community Garden.

"He just did a great job on that project, rebuilding the beds for our community garden," said JoAnne Skelly, Carson City/Storey County Extension educator for the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, who oversees the garden.

"He was just awesome. What a crew he had working for him. It was very impressive," she said.

Aragon, the son of Community Garden Master Gardener volunteer Dawn Aragon and member of Troop 45, admits he is very pleased with the results of his project.

"It looks a lot better there now," he said. "I was surprised at how much we got done in such a short amount of time."

Aragon approached Skelly about the project in September, and on Nov. 6, more than 30 people turned out to help him spruce it up.

"Originally, none of the 24 beds had frames," Skelly said. "They were marked with strings and stakes, but over the years, some people had built frames."

Aragon and his crew took over where gardeners left off.

"They got all the old wood out of there, and they came with automatic drills and the wood already cut and with corner pieces ready," she said.

Aragon said the project idea came together after much thought.

"I was having trouble coming up with ideas, but when this idea came up, everything fell right into place and it worked out great," he said.

His first step was heading over to the garden to evaluate it.

"I could see that most of the beds needed to be rebuilt and trees trimmed and weeds pulled, so I figured out what materials I'd need for the project by measuring, and then, how many people I'd need," he said.

Total cost for the project was $500 which Aragon raised through donations from friends and family and church members.

"The purpose is to make a difference," he said. "It's to benefit the community, it's for service and to get stuff done to help people."

The community garden is located east of Lone Mountain Cemetery on Beverly Drive. For $10, gardeners have access to compost, tools, water hoses and their own plot, 4-feet by 16-feet long, Skelly said.

On work day, in addition to building new frames for at least 17 plots, Aragon and his helpers spent three hours working. They took out old garden bed frames that were falling apart, trimmed trees to allow more light onto plots, pulled weeds, turned the compost pile, covered it for winter and took out an old shed that was in bad shape and not being used.

"A couple of the regular gardeners showed up to see what was going on, and they really appreciated what we were doing," Aragon said.

One of the gardeners, Margo Hassler, said she and her friends appreciated the work.

"They just did a beautiful job," she said, "and he is such a nice young man."

Eagle Scout is the highest rank that can be attained by Scouts. Only four percent of youth who join Scouting earn this honor. The project is a requirement of achieving that status.