Eagle Scout leads effort to build new shed for Sugar Grove church

Driving near Harter Middle School in Sugar Grove, you might catch a glimpse of the new red shed on the other side of Harter Road off in the distance across from a farmer’s field.

The 12′ x 12′ wood shed’s construction was spearheaded by Sugar Grove resident Christopher Eby, who chose to replace a dilapidated shed by organizing a team to build a new one for the Sugar Grove United Methodist Church as his Eagle Project for Sugar Grove Boys Scouts of America Troop No. 41.

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Sugar Grove resident Christopher Eby replaced a dilapidated shed by organizing a team to build a new one for the Sugar Grove United Methodist Church (SGUMC) as his Eagle Project for Sugar Grove Boys Scouts of America Troop No. 41. (Sandy Bressner)

“This wasn’t just my project,” Eby said. “There were 518-and-a-half hours of work put into this, which is my time included, and which is what I think is so special. I had like 65 people help. Sure it was my project, but without all this help there’s no way I could’ve done this.”

Honestly, Eby didn’t think there was much chance initially that he could do it.

“My first opinion was that I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I thought there was no way. Not to hate on anyone’s [Eagle] project, but I hadn’t seen another project this extensive and this big before. I’m not trying to toot my own horn because I didn’t do all this work, but I didn’t think it was feasible at first, especially my junior year in high school [at Marmion].”

Eby estimated that he’d still be working on the project into 2027 if he was doing it alone.

“If I did it by myself it would be done in about five years or never get done,” he said. “I don’t have the knowledge to do every single thing with carpentry, but with all the experts helping and all the manual labor I had from the church and the Boy Scout troop it was so much more simpler of a project than what it seemed at first.”

Setbacks were temporary roadblocks

The plan was to pour concrete for the shed’s base in November 2022, but first Eby would need to get the church to do it. He was stuck, however, since he’d just lost his project beneficiary when Pastor Tammy Scott was transferred from SGUMC.

Instead of concrete setting in, panic was.

“So we can’t get the concrete and we’re starting to panic,” Eby said. “And the whole winter goes by and now it’s spring and Pastor Tammy is leaving so we have a new pastor [Joe Munro] who is my beneficiary now and we make friends with Pastor Joe.”

“I had just gotten the appointment with SGUMC,” Munro said. “Christopher reached out that he was building a shed for an eagle project and it would be the church’s responsibility for the pad to be done.”

Munro already was committed to a mission trip in Belize that summer, but after talking with an acquaintance who used to pour concrete, he realized that this was something he and others could do. Of course, they would need supplies, and acquiring commercial-grade concrete to create a level and stable base for the shed was a whole other matter.

After returning to the states from Central America, Munro reached out to Quikrete.

“I just happened to call over there and explained we had an Eagle project going on and what we were looking to do and the plant manager said if it’s a Eagle Scout project they would love to help and they donated a whole skid,” Munro said.

That plant manager proved to be Sugar Grove resident Ryan Walter, the vice president and regional controller for The Quikrete Companies. Walter also is a family friend of the Ebys but he had no idea that they were the ones in need of concrete for an Eagle project.

“So Pastor Joe starts, and he’s a mover and a shaker, and he gets the name for somebody who is a big wig at a local place and he donates all the concrete for us,” Eby’s mother, Dawn Eby, explained. “I don’t know who this is so I’m walking in my neighborhood and I see Ryan Walter and he says, ‘Hey Dawn, who is the scout that is doing the project out on the Harter Road property? I just supplied them with all the concrete.’ ”

“It’s amazing,” Munro said. “Just the right people at the right time. As always, we need to take off our blinders and we will see God working. He was lining things up all along.”

Help, help and more help

Jon Bieritz, founder and president of JB Architecture Group, Inc., provided the architectural drawings and plans free of charge while meeting with Eby.

“I always enjoy helping people with any project they have where they need my services or guidance,” Bieritz said. “I love to be able to answer their questions and help them solve their problems, and I’m happy to do that no matter how big or small.”

Bieritz had worked with Dawn Eby in the past and his contractor, Dustin Hawkins of DK Hawkins Group of Elburn, also is a member of Sugar Grove United Methodist Church.

“I’ve known the Eby family for 10 years and we’d been trying to get a shed built on the property for a couple years with committees, but it never happened,” Hawkins said. “Dawn and I were talking and I said if Christopher is willing to take it on we can help him out as the church, a collaborative effort, because this was a huge project. I’m not sure other Eagle Scout projects are this ambitious.”

Like he does professionally, Hawkins served as a general contractor for Eby’s project.

“I gave him guidance and explained why we were doing it so he would understand the building process,” Hawkins said. “The whole Eagle Project is about guiding other people to do the work, so you have to understand what we were doing and why to guide the other volunteers. I was onsite to guide them through the process of construction, framing and siding and getting a roof on and then trimming it all and painting it. And we were able to use some of my contacts.”

Mark Forbes, branch manager of ABC Supply Company in Aurora, donated the roofing materials. Nancy Loess of Sierra Forest Products in West Chicago, donated plywood. In addition, the Home Depot on Orchard Road in Aurora donated some lumber and paint.

“It’s just a sense of community that pulls it together,” Hawkins said. “I first got to know Christopher and his brother Billy when my two boys were in baseball and then we got to know each other through church. It’s a special place being in a small town. Everybody that came together to help either knew Christopher or knew of each other.”

Learning, leading and succeeding

Eby acknowledged that keeping the project moving was one of his biggest concerns, especially as he suddenly found himself in the new role of delegator.

“I’m not going to lie, it was kind of difficult because it’s hard leading a bunch of people who know way more than you do about a specific field,” he said. “I had experienced carpenters who’ve owned businesses for 10 to 15 years. They’ve been doing this stuff before I was born, so telling them what to do was not always the easiest thing to do so that was one of the hardest things. Everyone has their own ideas. It was compiling ideas and figuring our a plan with people much more experienced then I was.”

Other scouts and leaders, family, church members, folks from the Sugar Grove community, as well as eight of Eby’s friends from Marmion also came out and put in a lot of time and effort to help ensure he finished the shed.

“This was a completely unique experience for me,” he said. “I can’t think of anything relatively similar to this. I’ve worked on other people’s Eagle Scout projects but that was nothing like leading it.”

Eby took on a project of this magnitude while also serving as vice president and drum captain of his high school’s band, team captain of the fishing team and tackling a course load that included five AP classes.

“It was definitely difficult the whole time balancing everything,” he said. “I try to push myself in school. I’m not always perfect about it, like every human being, but I try pushing myself in school, sports and scouts, and something that I learned throughout is the ability to balance all those things into one, because that’s something I’m going to have to do my whole life. Some nights I have Boy Scouts even though I have a practice or I have a practice and can’t go to Boy Scouts. Sometimes I have to make sacrifices and hopefully can be able to make up for those sacrifices.”

Having attained Scouting’s highest rank, Eby’s accomplishment will be celebrated in April with an Eagle Scout of Honor.

“I’m really happy that I did it,” he said. “I think I would’ve been very sad if I didn’t end up doing it. I think it’s shaped who I am. My leadership skills, being able to delegate and lead people, so the fact that I did a project like this, I feel like it’s part of who I am now.”