Would you like to help a Boy Scout give back to the Dunwoody community? 

My name is Levi Hoey and I am a 15 year old Dunwoody High School student and Boy Scout  from Troop 477 at Kingswood Methodist Church. 

For over seven years I have been eagerly awaiting the chance to start my own Eagle Scout project to give back to my community.  Helping other Scouts complete their service projects and witnessing several friends become Eagle Scouts, I am excited to independently begin this adventure with the support of friends and family.

("While a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project...").

The main goal of an Eagle Scout project is to "give back" but also to learn and develop leadership skills. As a Kingsley Elementary student, I was given many opportunities to become a leader (ie. Safety Patrol, Trout Hatchery Leader,  and Board Scholar). Therefore, I have decided to give back to Kingsley Elementary School in appreciation for all the great experiences that I had enjoyed at the school and in hopes of creating more great experiences for the current and future Kingsley kids.

Some of my favorite Kingsley memories were linked to the creative hands on activities developed by the gifted Kingsley teachers. We often used the courtyard in the middle of the school, but we rarely got the opportunity to use the outdoor learning area that is currenlty located in the wooded area between the street and the parking lot. 

Although the students love the excitement of learning outside in nature, teachers stopped utilizing the outdoor venue.  The three main reasons were unsafe benches and a rotten podium, an absense of instructional learning tools  in the area and limited safe access to the trail without passing through a busy parking lot.

The goal of my Eagle Scout project will be to both renovate and enhance the Outdoor Learning Area.

My plan is to upgrade the wooden trail boundary, the benches and podium and design educational tools for teachers to incorporate into their lessons. In addition, I will redirect the trail so that it begins from a safe place for students to enter and exit outside of the parking lot.  The wooden borders will be replaced with a more durable landscaping edging. The new expanded walking trail will be covered in wood chips. A team of volunteers will help me construct new benches for the students and a new podium for the teacher.  The final step will require the construction of a variety of educational activites for teachers to use during lessons.  These activites will help teachers (especially in science) to use hands on displays to reinforece topics like biology, geology, the environment, and, last but not least, nature.

These major improvement will entice teachers to extend their classrooms and explore the  world around us along the way.

This is a really big project.. and I am hoping my community will support me both financially and with thier time.  I am really excited about giving back to my elementary school with this service project. 

Any donations will be greatly appreciated.  I hope to get this project completed by the end of this year or early next year.  I am really excited to see the students at Kingsley getting the opportunity to learn outside in classroom!

Thanks again.  If you have any questions about the project, feel free to contact me through the gofundme website.


Photos:

This is the current entrance for the trail that is connected to the parking lot.

This is the current teacher podium which is rotten, and will be replaced with my project.


These are the current benches in the learning area.  I will replace these and will also rearrange them so that students won't have to worry about having their view blocked by students in the row ahead of them.