Skip to main content

Fundraising

After final approval, the fundraising efforts started.

Jackson approached 2 Home Depots, 2 Lowes and 1 ACE store.  He had a printed letter and came dressed in full scout gear.   He always asked to see the manager and he had to return to stores several times to finally talk to a manager in charge of donations.  Lowe's never called back or agreed to anything but a discount (no donated goods).  He did put out a request for funds through NextDoor without any replies.  He also contacted our local realty company (owning all of Castle Hills properties) without any replies. 

The Lewisville Home Depot kindly donated most of the lumber, pvc, and metal pipes, worth around $280.  The Colony Home Depot gave more PVC, MEK, PVC cement and other misc. supplies valued around $70.  The Westlake ACE hardware donated $50 of goods, mostly used for carriage bolts, MEK, screws and sandpaper.  The rest was purchased by ourselves online and in stores for a total of about $125.  The total cost of the project was about $525.  

Note here:  ALWAYS show up with a letter and in scout uniform.  The manager at Home Depot said that he rarely gives so much for Eagle projects, but Jackson showed up in person with a letter and in scout uniform.  Many times parents go do the work for them and it doesn't go over well.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Final Draft blueprints for construction

We went through several drafts and possible construction designs, and here are the final designs that Jackson came up with.  Each blue box is 2 inches, the yellow lines are 1 foot.  Poles will be place in 2 feet holes, so the black line is the "ground line".  The total width is 61 inches for the Tubulum and 60 inches for the Metal Chimes.  Total height for the Tubulum (to the top of the red pole from the ground) is 10 feet, and for the Metal Chimes 6 1/2 feet. Note the tubulum poles are showing the bottom-most part of the u-bend; remember it curves up and the opening of the pipe will be several inches higher. Tubulum: Suspended Metal Chimes:

Painting PVC and prepping metal pipes

This was a big group activity.  Scouts sanded down all the black writing on all the pipes, then wiped them with wet rags and dried them to get ready for the dye.   Other scouts drilled holed in both ends of the metal pipes, then filed down all the sharp ends of the pipes.   Mostly adults dyed the PVC pipes since we were working with the highly caustic MEK  solution. Some notes on dying PVC pipe.  PVC pipe does not paint well.  It quickly peels and pulls off leaving a big mess.  You can purchase industrial grade dye on ebay (Rekhaoil dye comes in 1/4 ounce bottles, plenty for 1 pipe) and mix with with MEK.  Once applied to the pipe, it is permanent and needs a LOT of sanding to remove.   The MEK eats in to the pipe an leaves a permanent tattoo of color.   The result is amazing.  However, MEK is caustic and eats through any plastic gloves, container or tarp.  We had lots of br...