When Heights High junior Berkeley Trammell isn’t attending school, practicing baseball or doing homework, he can be found renovating the school garden at Boulevard Elementary School as he seeks the rank of Eagle Scout from the Boy Scouts of America. When he completes his ambitious project this fall, he will join only four percent of all Boy Scouts, and just one-half of one percent of the entire US population of scout-aged boys, in achieving this highest honor.

The Eagle Scout designation “demonstrates leadership skills, persistence and character,” and requires Scouts to complete a “comprehensive community service project” before their 18th birthday in addition to earning at least 21 merit badges, displaying outdoor skills, and fulfilling leadership roles, according to the BSA website.

Berkeley has been a Boy Scout since he was five, following in the footsteps of his two older brothers, who are also Eagle Scouts. “I couldn’t be the odd one out,” he jokes of his choice to pursue the Eagle Scout rank.

He’s been working with members of his troop and some Boulevard staff to clean up the overgrown garden, creating beds for every class and building benches so student groups can use the space as an outdoor classroom. He’ll also be creating binders of all the flowers and vegetables in the garden, with pictures and descriptions, so that students and teachers know which to keep and which to get rid of as the seasons change.

Berkeley attended the Waldorf Urban Oak School, where he participated in outdoor education, and wanted to share that with Boulevard, his neighborhood school. “This will teach the kids how to take care of something, and let them put their phones down and be comfortable getting their hands dirty.”

The school plans to use the garden to teach students about where their food comes from and hopes to organize groups of parent and student volunteers to help maintain the space, especially over the summer. According to Boulevard 4th grade teacher Julie Walker, who volunteered on the garden clean-up, “We were thrilled to have Berkeley see a need in his community and step up to help. That's what Tiger Nation is about.” 

Berkeley admits that when he was younger, he didn’t always see the value of scouting and that the Boy Scout Oath – “To help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight” – just seemed like a saying. “Now it’s something I live by.”