San Ramon Scout Builds Shelter For Animals

SAN RAMON, CA — Lots of people have a love for animals. But not everybody can use that like to construct a six-foot shelter for livestock priced at greater than $1,000.

16-year-old Bransen Tong did simply that for his group service undertaking with Boy Scout Troop 84 of San Ramon.

“When the time got here to do one thing for my undertaking, I acquired involved with the shelter they usually talked about how throughout wildfires lots of animals and livestock are despatched there and there’s no solar or rain shelter for them,” he mentioned.

Tong’s undertaking to construct the construction on the East County Animal Shelter in Dublin put him in command of each development element from starting to finish. He began planning in 2019, simply earlier than the pandemic hit.

“At that point, I priced every part out, the undertaking was estimated at $800,” he mentioned.

Fast ahead to April 2022, the price of his provides was way more costly. Tong fundraised amongst family and friends to get pressure-treated wooden, wooden planks and sheets of plywood. He additionally wanted provides to dig the holes for the cement posts that maintain the shelter up.

Digging these holes was a tough, and misleading, labor of affection.

“The floor simply appears like good inexperienced grass however when you dig into it, it is like laborious rock,” Tong’s mom Christine mentioned.

Still, a bunch of Scouts and their dad and mom dug deep Saturday and laid the cement. The plan was to have three workdays to finish the shelter. Somehow, the group wrapped all of it up in a single weekend.

“It felt actually good to profit the animals in the neighborhood on high of attending to know my group, bonding with the Scouts who helped me and their dad and mom,” Tong mentioned.

The completed six-foot-shelter has three partitions and a roof with a giant opening within the entrance. It can shield animals from the weather and function respite for these displaced throughout wildfires, a season sadly rapidly approaching.

“It’s timed with wildfires changing into more and more extra widespread every summer time. We cross our fingers we do not have one other huge fireplace however it’s all the time a risk,” Christine mentioned.

Finishing the undertaking marks the following step in Tong’s street to Eagle Scout, the best Scout honor.

“This is one thing I’ve been engaged on for a very long time. Seeing it in entrance of us is an enormous reduction.”