A New Kiosk for the Community Garden!

As an Eagle Scout I am very pleased to post this guest article by Randy Black. Randy is a Life Scout in Troop 132 in East Brunswick and has almost attained the rank of Eagle Scout. Randy completed his Eagle Scout project over the past few weekends by building a much needed kiosk at the East Brunswick Community Garden, the final major hurdle for him to attain the rank of Eagle. Since its founding in 1910, only 2 percent of all scouts have attained Eagle making this is a huge accomplishment.

The Friends has had the great opportunity to mentor many Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts on their Eagle, Silver and Gold Awards and we are always open to suggesting projects in town and assisting scouts with them. Please let us know if you are looking for a project. Over the years, we have assisted scouts with projects at the Butterfly Park (benches, trails, kiosk, shed, plantings, artwork, bat house), at Great Oak Park (gazebo, park map, plant ID tags), at Keystone Park (Osprey Nest Tower), at the Community Garden (shed, kiosk), at the High school Old Apple Orchard (Apple tree plantings, outdoor classroom, bridge), at Dallenbach's Natural Area (bat houses), at Irwin School (Natural Area trail and education signs) and at Chittick School (Butterfly Garden).

On behalf of the Friends and all of the Community Gardeners, a huge kudos to Randy for building us a kiosk and for being at the end of the long trail to Eagle Scout.      

Here is Randy's guest post:

Building this kiosk was a very lengthy and difficult process. A year ago, I emailed Michael Reissner, the Director of the Department of Parks and Recreation for East Brunswick, asking if he had any suggestions for an Eagle project. He suggested this one, and I worked on the planning all summer. It took many hours from my time to plan this project, and after I got it approved by the Boy Scout council, I started fundraising. It took about another three months to fund raise the costs for this kiosk, including gathering the supplies. After that was ready I started to build the kiosk.

On the first day of construction, we created the actual board and started on the roof, but there was a problem. One scout leader looked at my plans and told me he had serious concerns with the stability and balance of the structure. After a week of communications, we decided to change the majority of the design of the kiosk. We changed the roofing design from a piece of plywood and shingles to wooden planks, and the leg design was changed from one 4x4 to a 2x4 connected with a 2x6. In addition to the other changes, the kiosk is a lot stronger now than it would have been without them. We also decided that the Plexi-glass should be attached differently for better water-tightness and modified that aspect while building it too. The kiosk was also sealed with 4 coats of water sealant to protect the wood from the weather. The kiosk was finally completed on October 13, 2012. I hope the kiosk pleases all of the gardeners, and I wish them the best of luck with their harvests!  Randy