ARLINGTON — Tanner Gaskin was honored by the city of Arlington on Monday, Oct. 21, for his Eagle Scout project, earlier in the year, to install a road and parking pads for 12 campsites at the Country Charm Conservation and Recreation Area.

City of Arlington Storm Water Manager Bill Blake presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Gaskin, a 17-year-old senior at Arlington High School who’s also been enrolled in Running Start for the past two years at Everett Community College, for supervising an estimated 30 volunteers in performing 105 man-hours of labor at the park site at E. Gilman Avenue in Arlington.

In turn, Gaskin credited Blake — as well as his own father, the rest of his family, his fellow Scouts and his other volunteers — with providing “invaluable aid” in laying down 480 tons of gravel in a roundabout with 20-foot by 20-foot parking plots.

“We hit up about the first half of the campsites there,” Gaskin said. “The middle of the roundabout, we just left as open ground. It took 15 trucks to transport all the gravel to the site, and it got spread with a trackhoe.”

When asked what it was like to supervise his own father during the construction efforts, Gaskin laughed, “It was great,” but Gaskin’s father described himself as both proud of his son’s leadership and gratified to be able to work on such a project without being in charge of it himself.

According to Gaskin, he’s been in the Boy Scouts for seven years, and joined the Cub Scouts when he was 6 years old.

“It’s been a lot of work and responsibility, but it’s worth it,” Gaskin said. “I actually started meeting with the city a year ago, because I wanted to choose an Eagle Scout project that would benefit the whole community, so I went to the city and asked them, ‘So, what do you have?'”

Gaskin found it challenging to coordinate the schedules of his volunteers with the availabilities of the city, especially since the entire site needed to be mowed before work could begin.

“The grass was over our heads before we started,” Gaskin said.

“This project was funded through a Williams Pipeline Grant,” said Blake, who touted the importance of such grant funds during times of economic need.

“I’m sure many people in Arlington and beyond will appreciate the results of your efforts,” Arlington Mayor Barbara Tolbert told Gaskin on Oct. 21.