My name is Mason Minear and I live in Lake Stevens, WA. I just graduated from Lake Stevens High School and Sno-Isle Tech in June of 2020. I joined Cub Scouts in the third grade, Pack 43, and then when I turned 11 in 2013, I joined Troop 36. In Boy Scouts, Eagle is the highest rank. It is the summation of everything I’ve done in scouts (skills and leadership) and includes an Eagle service project. The final step is to pass the Eagle Board of Review, which I had on December 14, 2020, and I passed, so I am officially an Eagle Scout!

For my Eagle Scout project, I created activity boards for people living with Alzheimer’s disease. The activity boards help to stimulate thought and strengthen hand-eye coordination and finger dexterity of the person living with Alzheimer’s, while also being a source of entertainment for the person and a few minutes of respite for a caregiver. The 20 boards I made were given to the Alzheimer’s Association Washington State Chapter to be distributed to individuals or memory care communities as they deemed appropriate.

The inspiration for this project was that I wanted to do something a little outside of the box for an Eagle Scout project, as well as to honor my grandmas. My great grandma Cindy (on my mom’s side) died of Alzheimer’s when I was a toddler. Now, my grandma Sandee (on my dad’s side) has Alzheimer’s. I noticed that grandma Sandee would always fidget with things on the table in front of her, and that my grandpa Mike was always so busy caring for her. She just moved into a memory care community this summer.

I searched around for ideas online, saw similar boards and came up with plans for my boards. I designed one that I thought would be appropriate for both men and women. I then connected with the local Alzheimer’s Association to see if the boards are something they would be interested in.

My proposal was approved on March 12, 2020. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic immediately threw a wrench into my plans, halting the purchasing of supplies, securing a location, and actually gathering to do the work on the project. For a while, I didn’t know what to do. When COVID-19 restrictions lifted a bit, I began coming up with an alternative plan and requested an extension for the time I lost. I ended up doing the entire project at my grandparents’ house because my grandpa Brad has his own workshop and all the tools. The boards took a lot of work in making sure that everything fit and was secure in place. 

This project took 178.5 hours total hours of all planning and all workers, including myself. We physically made the boards from Sept. 17, 2020 through Sept. 20, 2020 for about 32 hours.

In completing this project, I learned to be flexible. I learned to speak up for myself and to appropriately direct/instruct others, because everyone is different. I further developed my leadership skills with all the problem-solving I had to do

The most rewarding part about being the leader was having overall control of the situation. It was satisfying to know what is going on, that tasks were being done correctly, dealing with any problems as they arise and seeing everything work out smoothly after issues had been addressed. I really enjoyed working with the Alzheimer’s Association on my Eagle Scout project and hope the people who receive the boards enjoy using them as much as I enjoyed creating them.