Oglethorpe County Library has added two handcrafted chairs and a table as part of its patio expansion.
Cory Tillman, a rising senior at Oglethorpe County High School, completed the chairs with the help of Boy Scout Troop 22 of Athens as part of his Eagle Scout service project.
This is one of the final requirements before Tillman can become eligible for Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Scouts BSA program.
The chairs are an addition to expansion plans by the library to provide an outdoor picnic and activity space for children during events. Placed under a shady spot next to the patio, the chairs will give parents a place to relax and watch their children play.
One requirement of the Eagle Project is that they must benefit the community in some way. Library branch manager Nicole Hensley said Tillman’s donation is going to make a huge impact.
“Anybody who’s coming in to use the library in this county is going to see their donation, is going to be able to use it and is going to benefit from it,” Hensley said. “If you’re in a bigger city, you might not even go to the place that you donated your project to on a regular basis, whereas the Tillman family comes in all the time.”
Hensley said having an outdoor space would give the library the opportunity to hold events that can’t take place inside the building, such as its recent Mess Fiesta, which kicked off the Summer Reading Program.
“When we do big events like that, it’s helpful to have an outdoor space,” she said. “A picnic table would be really great because we could do activities on it that are a little bit messier. So we kind of wanted to incorporate this area that’s really nice into the programs and stuff we do.“
Eagle Projects are a chance for scouts to apply skills they’ve learned throughout previous ranks. Projects like Tillman’s require the scout to demonstrate leadership and scout spirit during the project’s completion.
“That’s one of the things we focus on in scouts. Trying to help kids develop leadership skills and opportunities to be leaders,” said Michael Lynch, Tillman’s scout master. “They ran into some problems, but figured out how to solve them as a group, and that’s what we always hope to do — have them work on their own to accomplish these things.”
Tillman’s main challenge was organizing and managing the two workdays when Troop 22 of Athens helped him make the chairs.
After running into a few issues building the first chair, Tillman and the other scouts took these mistakes in stride and applied them to the second chair.
“For the second one, we just learned from our mistakes and built this one a lot better,” Tillman said. “The boards are all straight, everything’s cut the right way. Once we learned from our mistakes, we were good.”
Projects like this are aimed at providing scouts with opportunities to practice teamwork and problem solving, as well as personal development. Tillman said he earned two of his merit badges from planning and keeping a calendar, and helping a younger scout learn a skill.
With the Eagle Project complete, Tillman only has to submit his project plan and earn two more merit badges before being eligible for the Eagle Scout rank.
“It’s taught me leadership and how to effectively manage,” he said, “and also how to show people how to do something and to enable them to do it in the future.”
Building anniversary
The Oglethorpe County Library will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its current building at 1 p.m. Wednesday, June 25. There will be refreshments, games and a time to share memories of the library.