Third sibling to complete Eagle project
If the Hudson Valley SPCA ever considers naming a room after someone, perhaps the animal shelter should consider a dedication in honor of the Byrne family. Brothers Jack and James completed Eagle Scout projects at the no-kill animal sanctuary in the past few years. This past summer, younger sibling Sam finished his Eagle project at the shelter.
“I thought it would be a good idea to be the third brother to complete an Eagle Scout project there,” said Byne, a Cornwall High School senior who has been in scouts for 11 years. “I thought it was a great experience because I’d never done anything like that in my life where I’m running the show. To see a project come together I never felt something like that before.”
When formulating a plan for his project, Byrne reached out to the shelter’s beneficiary to discuss what needed to be done. He was shown two rooms which had been scratched up by cats over the years. The rooms needed to be repainted, the door and window trim replaced, as well as the cover on the radiator. On the cat porch, rope had to be wrapped around the support columns to prevent further scratching.
When Byrne presented his project to the Boy Scout council, no changes were made to the project, but the recommendation was to limit the number of people in each room out of concern for spreading COVID-19.
Pressed for time to complete the project before his 18th birthday in August, Bryne set to work in late June and was finished by mid-July. He originally planned to hold a fund raiser to purchase supplies, but because of the time constraint, he and his parents agreed to split the cost. The total came to about $300 after a discount from Home Depot on wood, paint, and other materials.
Byrne held work sessions twice a week for a total of five hours a day, completing the project in five days. In keeping with the council’s suggestion, no more than three people were allowed to work in a room at a time.
“Organizing people to do something wasn’t new because I have held leadership positions in my troop,” Byrne said. “It wasn’t that hard because they were my friends and my father has a lot of knowledge about carpentry. The only challenge for me was all the paperwork and having to go to meetings to get it approved.”
Once the project was complete, Byrne met with the Eagle board of review in early September. He was officially awarded the highest honor in scouting during a ceremony on Sept. 26.
When Byrne first joined Cub Scouts he admits he wasn’t much of a fan, thinking it was more about hiking in the woods and tying knots, but as the years went on, he learned structural morals from the Scout law and motto and gained leadership qualities which will help him in the future.
