After 15 months of raising $22,000 and dedicating countless hours of hard work alongside fellow Scouts and volunteers, Trevor Suggs’ dream of creating Texas’ first inclusive scatter garden has finally become a reality. His ambitious Eagle Scout project culminated in a ribbon cutting ceremony in May when the community gathered to celebrate this unique addition to Georgetown’s Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F) Cemetery.
A designated area to scatter a loved one’s ashes, the garden offers individuals a special place to honor their loved ones in a serene, beautiful park setting.
The garden consists of a walkway, benches, flagpole, memorial wall, and scatter bed filled with colorful stones. “I am very excited the community now has a place where a family can scatter a loved one’s ashes and easily return to reflect on their time together in life,” Trevor says. “I am ecstatic to see the memorial wall fill up with tags in the coming years as ashes are put to rest and families learn about the scatter garden through Georgetown Parks & Recreation and other sources.”
During the ceremony, Trevor conducted the garden’s first scattering by laying to rest the ashes of local resident Jeanie Bowie, marking the garden’s beginning as a place to memorialize lost loved ones. As County Judge Bill Gravell is responsible for managing unclaimed ashes from the county’s funeral homes, Trevor inquired about anyone whose ashes remained unclaimed and received permission to honor Jeanie during the ribbon cutting. “I found it interesting that ashes are more like sand than dust in terms of consistency,” he shares.
While there haven’t been any additional scatterings since the garden’s opening ceremony, Jill Kellum with Georgetown Parks & Recreation, which manages and maintains the I.O.O.F. Cemetery, said they are open to working with funeral homes and individuals to plan scattering ceremonies.
EAGLE SCOUT LEGACY
Trevor is excited to offer this meaningful service to the community while also reaching a major milestone on his path to becoming an Eagle Scout in November. Unlike typical Eagle Scout projects that average $500, his scatter garden project wound up being valued at $50,000, with more than 900 hours of dedicated volunteer work bringing the project to life, including fundraising, planning, design, and construction. “I’m 15 years old, and my project took 15 months!”
Having been in Scouting since he was 9 years old, “it is wonderful to reflect and see how far I have come as a person, leader, and member of my local community,” Trevor says. “I am unbelievably lucky to have had an opportunity to give back to my community meaningfully through my Eagle Scout Service Project. The ash scattering garden project I managed and led opened up an entirely new avenue for families and funeral homes alike to respectfully spread either their loved one’s ashes or unclaimed community ashes over a scatter bed, providing a pleasant resting place that makes it easy for people to visit in the future.”
