By Amy Filippone, Dept. of Parks & Recreation
For more than ten years, the Moorestown Parks and Recreation Department has partnered with local boy scouts in their Eagle Scout service projects. It’s a service project to benefit the community and has many components: planning, meetings, fundraising, public speaking and execution. For months, the scouts work closely with the Rec. Department to develop their projects. They present their plan to the Rec. Advisory Committee where it is discussed and then again after the project is completed.
It’s a lot of work and saves the township time and resources. Skyler Nikolic of Troop 61 completed his project in the fall of 2019. He organized a team that cleared several hundred yards of the hiking trail on the Nixon Drive side of Strawbridge Lake.
“We cleared the beginning of the trail,” Nikolic said. “It was so overgrown, you could hardly tell where the path was. We cleared out all the brush and made the path wider and it looks really nice. I also installed a hiking sign so people know the path is there.”
Nikolic recruited 15 to 20 volunteers, which was a big undertaking.
“You’re responsible for a lot of kids getting to the site and back home and for their safety,” he said. “There was adult supervision, but I also gave some talks about safety.”
The recruiting paid off.
“We actually did a bigger piece of the trail than we were planning to because I got way more help than I thought I would,” Nikolic said. “There’s many moving parts and a lot of hidden factors that you don’t realize in the beginning. I had a lot of help and I’m very thankful for that.”
Nikolic was very happy with his project and the process itself.
“It’s really a whole new level of leadership and independence,” he said.
Steve Plant, from Troop 44, will take over from where Nikolic left off.
“I enjoy hiking and walking my dog and just being outside so I thought that it would be a really fitting project for me,” Plant said.
In March, he plans to continue to clear the path but has to deal with added obstacles.
“I was going to trim back shrubs and bushes along the trail, but when I went out there I realized that there were parts that were muddy and hard to get through,” Plant said. “The foot bridges were pretty much submerged in mud, so I decided to replace them with new ones. I think it comes to seven or eight of various sizes.”
Plant, who wants to study engineering, will make the best use of his and the volunteers time.
“I hope to do it in a weekend, but it’s a pretty big project so it could be two weekends,” Plant said. “I’m planning on taking a night to pre-fabricate everything and get the wood into groups for each bridge so it’s pre-cut and ready to go and we can just put it in.”
Girl Scout Troop 26041 also put in some hard work recently and painted the meeting room at the New Albany Rec. Center.
“This is a high school group of ten girls and we decided to take one day and tackle the project and we did,” said Troop Leader Maryellen DeMiller.
And there’s more scout projects on the horizon, Jerry Hampton will be building a garbage can enclosure in front of the Church Street Rec. Center, and Spencer Talbot will be painting the large room on the third floor of the Rec Center. Stay tuned; details to follow. So, join us in thanking our scouting population for these impressive undertakings and for making our community better.
