The Maple Valley Fire and Life Safety department recognized a local Boy Scout for his dedication and the time he took to build another life jack station at Lake Wilderness Park in Maple Valley.
The scout, Kyle Sommer, was given a Certificate of Appreciation at the April 12 Fire Commissioners Meeting that took place at Station 81.
Sommer got his start as a Cub Scout about seven years ago, and has now been a Boy Scout for three or four years, he said. Now he is working on moving even farther up the ranking ladder.
He built the other life jacket station to help ensure the safety of the community last summer in order to receive “The Rank of Eagle Scout.”
To become an Eagle Scout, Sommer said as a Boy Scout you have to go out and do a project that will better the community that you live in.
“You have to walk through all the ranks of a Boy Scout and all the requirement merit badges and then you have to do this big community service project to help benefit the community and then write in letters of recommendation from people in the community,” Sommer said. “They (the community) explain why I should be an Eagle Scout, and then you have one big final meeting where people from the community sit down and sit and talk about and decide whether I should earn it (Eagle Scout rank) or not.”
The idea to build another life jacket station came from Sommer’s dad, he said.
“My dad actually saw the article in the paper about how the fire department restocked a station at the swim area and that got us thinking about how could we implement this and place another one at the boat launch where people need it on the lake,” Sommer said.
He said he started his project about six months ago and the project cost about $2,000. This money came from donations from community members.
Sommer said talking to local businesses about getting donations and support was probably the hardest part of his project.
“When I got home from school I worked on it. Sometimes my dad would pick me up straight from school and we would go around to local businesses and we would just talk to them,” he said.
Currently, Sommer is waiting for the final meeting to take place with community members who will sit down and review Sommer’s work to see if he earned his rank as Eagle Scout.
Sommer said he appreciated being recognized by the Maple Valley Fire Department.
“It felt really honoring that people are recognizing what I’ve done and that the Fire and Life Safety realized that ‘Hey, we have people in the community that are willing to help the community, hopefully, stay safe,” he said. “I (also want to) thank all of the community donors for their donations to the project.”
