When searching for what his Eagle Scout project might be, Bishop Eustace senior Wyatt Giberson knew he wanted it to be something local within Berlin Borough. As with most projects, he wanted to help and give back in some way.
Berlin Fire Company Chief Mike Kernan and Administrator/Fire Official Bill Behnke wanted to help Giberson make his decision and recommended he stop by the fire hall to discuss some potential ideas he could turn into a project.
The Berlin Fire Company, which Giberson’s dad worked with for nearly 20 years, was founded in 1909 and is completely run by volunteers. Brainstorming with his dad, the two eventually landed on the idea of creating something to commemorate the fire company’s history and work in the borough over the years.
Soon enough, the project took its full form after about a summer of planning, with the project turning into Giberson creating a cabinet to be placed in the Marie Fleche Memorial Library to display items throughout the history of the Berlin Fire Company.
Thanks to his dad’s extensive history with woodworking, Giberson figured the project would be the perfect mix of combining their skills to help the town in an important way by showing off the work the fire company does.
“I believed that we would be able to make something that’s really the best for everybody,” Giberson said.
He decided on the project around the end of August and started building it with his dad in October, eventually finishing the project in late November.
Although the cabinet is complete and contains items throughout history related to the fire company, such as old uniforms, helmets and more, it is also being added to over time. The cabinet was finished and officially put on display in February, with items being added as the fire company comes in possession of more display-worthy materials.
Donations from previous firefighters across the borough have helped add to the historic nature of the cabinet.
Kernan said the ability to add and move items in and out adds to the creativity of the project.
“We named it a history cabinet, so as we move forward, we left spaces in there to put stuff, switch stuff out and just keep it as an ongoing thing. We’ve never had anything like this before, and we thought the appropriate place to have it was the library. If something comes up along the way now, we can always add it.”
“I thought it was a fabulous idea,” Kernan added. “[Wyatt] built the cabinet well over and above what we thought it was going to be. That’s a big task for an 18-year-old.”
The fire company is in the process of creating a key to identify everything that hangs in the cabinet at one time, along with a brief description of the items to provide context and information to visitors, according to Kernan.
Wyatt’s parents are proud of him for having completed the project for the borough.
“We’re both really proud of him for taking on this project from start to finish,” Renee Giberson said. “He had to fundraise, get donations for the entire thing, come up with the diagram all on his own. His father and I are both really proud of the huge undertaking of the cabinet he’s built for the town.”
Wyatt is happy to have been able to complete the project and create a place for residents to see the history of the borough.
“I never did anything like this in my life,” Wyatt said. “I’m just really happy to have made an impact on the town, It was really cool that I got the chance to do something like this.”
