The following text is Mitchell Moore's summary of his Eagle Scout Project, the gazebo in Andale's City Park! Below you will find pictures of the gazebo. As of August 24, the gazebo has a few finishing touches left . We'll keep you updated.
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For my Eagle scout project, I decided to build a gazebo for the Andale City Park. My parents were against it because of costs, but I told them I wanted to see if it would work. Around January 8th, Paul Seiwert, my Eagle advisor, my dad and I got together to plan it out. I chose the type of gazebo and sent off to get the plans. We figured I would have to get around $3,000. I decided where I would like the gazebo to be built and wrote a speech up and went to the Andale Farmer’s Coop and Land O’ Lakes board meeting, Andale City Council meeting and Andale Area Chamber of Commerce meeting. After listening to my speech and asking questions, each group donated $1,000 toward my project.
I chose a plan that has 10 sides; a diameter of 21’ and a height of 18’. The first thing we did was stake out the place we wanted it to be. Then I asked Lowell Lyons if he could bring his tractor out to help us dig the holes for the posts. After he dug the holes with his post-hole digger, we put the posts in and poured cement in the holes. A safety fence was put around the area so that no one would step in the holes.
After the post had set-up, I called Shawn Ketzner, a home builder, and asked him to help us with the roof. To help with the roof, he brought his skytrack and nail guns. This let us put the rafters up and frame the roof much faster and safer. We built the frame and put plywood over the frame.
Next, we put shingles on. That was the hardest part. It took many weeks to do that and a lot of shingle cutting because of the weather. I even cut my self while cutting some of the shingles. For safety reason, only adults were actually on the roof to complete the shingling. The scouts fetched supplies and cleaned up afterwards. Since we were using scaffling and storing the supplies under the gazebo, I had to continue to set up the safety fence each time we stopped for the day.
One of the items that I had not planned for was the shingling of the peak. This was very difficult and we decided to get a copper top. Ken Kruse is creating a copper top that will have scroll work holding a copper ball. He is donating this to the project.
Once the shingling was done, we put a ceiling in the gazebo. The City of Andale had asked us to do it so that the birds would not build their nests in the rafters. Unfortunately, some birds had already built a nest. I tried to chase them out before we completed the ceiling.
Once the shingling and ceiling were complete, we needed cement. We were low on money so I went and asked for a discount from Andale Ready Mix. Surprisingly, they gave it to us for free. It was the good stuff -- non-rebar fiber reinforced cement. When it was time to pour the cement, Andale Ready Mix brought several of their workers with them to help with pouring and smoothing it out. It was a lot of help! I also had framed a handicap accessible ramp for the gazebo. This can be used for wheel-chairs as well as strollers.
To finish the gazebo, we put railing in and struts to make it look good. For the struts, we used a special spacing tool my neighbor had made. It helped us to space the struts evenly as well as the right distance so a kid could not get their head stuck in the struts.
After completing the gazebo, my dad and I thought it would be too difficult to build benches. I talked with the mayor and he was okay with us not building benches. But Dad and I continued to talk about it and figured out a way to build the benches. The gazebo is now complete with benches.
I think my project will be a benefit to the city park and serve as a place of shelter. I have got many good comments about it from the community. I couldn’t have done it without my dad, mom, Shawn Ketzner, Paul Seiwert, Pat Lies, Lowell Lyons, Andale Farmer’s Co-Op, Land o’Lakes, City of Andale, Andale Area Chamber of Commerce, Pat Reichenberger, Ken Kruse and other scouts.