SOUTHWICK – At the start of Monday night’s Conservation Commission meeting, two members of Southwick Boyscout Troop 338 presented their Eagle Scout projects.
Both Noah Kantor and Benjamin Gerow have gone through the Board of Review in order to become Eagle Scouts and were each required to do an Eagle Scout project.
Kantor’s project focused on the trail blazing and trail restoration of the Sofinowski Land Preservation in Southwick. According to Kantor, there were multiple issues that needed to be worked on including fixing the conflicting trail markers, foliage covering signs, and logs in the way of the trail paths.
In order to resolve those problems, Kantor and his fellow scout members added a red-colored trail, cleared out the logs, and added a parking sign in the trail.
For Gerow, his Eagle Scout project focused on building 20 Bluebird houses for Sofinowski Land Preserve. Gerow said that he had some Scouts laying out the poles for the birdhouses and others were building the boxes.
Troop 338 scout Noah Kantor points out a part of his Eagle Scout presentation on Monday night. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
The location of where the birdhouses had to be built was a challenge for Gerow. Each Bluebird house had to be 300 ft. away from one another, and they had to be at least 50 ft. away from the beginning of the woods.
After both presentations were finished, Conservation Commission Coordinator Dennis Clark, praised Troop 338 for their work towards land preservation like Sofinowski.
“I can’t thank you guys enough,” said Clark. “It’s projects like this that keep us going.”
Bryan Kantor, the Scout leader, mentioned that in order to be an Eagle Scout, Kantor and Gerow had to delegate and manage these projects. Those types of characteristics resemble the traits of an Eagle Scout.
“The project is the big part of it,” said the elder Kantor.
Kantor is grateful for the relationship that Troop 338 has with the Conservation Commission. The troop has presented three Eagle Scout projects to the commission in the last three months.
“It’s a great relationship,” said Kantor. “They support us and we support them.”
