While many Skyline Students spent their summers vacationing, certain students: Henry Sopoci (‘26), Branden Broulette (‘26) and Nicholas Farrell (‘26) spent last summer working hard on their Eagle Projects.
Becoming an Eagle Scout is a very difficult process in Scouting, most due to the usual final step, the Eagle Project: a type of service that demonstrates significant fundraising, leadership and planning and also benefits the community.
“I built a park for Scio Townships,” says Broulette. “I started the planning in August 2023 and I finished 2025, June.” Broulette’s project involved constructing a playground for Scio Township, a civil township of Washtenaw County. “When I lived in Ypsi before I moved, the only neighborhood structure was very run down. It didn’t have any sandboxes. The slide was broken…I just wanted to build a place [for kids to play] that no kids had.”
The age cap for becoming an Eagle Scout is 18 years old, leaving some to be pressed for time. Farrell finished his project in September of 2025, not long before his deadline. His project was the construction of a new storage room to keep equipment and toys for a dog shelter called Mikey and Me.
“My architect… got sick, which left me without help at one point,” says Farrell. “Thankfully, I was able to reach out to the volunteers at Mikey and Me and in the Chelsea community… It was a months-long effort, and it was so nice to have that weight off my back…If I were to do this project again, there really isn’t anything I would change, and while there were challenges, I was able to overcome them…and do so much more than I thought I could.”
For his project, Sopoci led scouts in reconstructing the Haisley Elementary School garden, the same place that he went for elementary school.
“[The garden] had become overgrown, and everything was falling apart,” says Sopoci. “I think the whole process is very valuable…also, having done so much writing for my Eagle Project, I’m just more comfortable filling out my college applications.”
In addition to the immense rewards of aiding the community, becoming an Eagle Scout is a big accomplishment that can be featured on college applications, due to the large amount of leadership that is involved.
