Pleasanton Student Named Eagle Scout

PLEASANTON, CA — Neil Phanse has qualified to become an Eagle Scout and will receive the award at an Eagle Scout Court of Honor to be scheduled soon. Neil is the son of Satyajit Phanse and Geetika Jain Phanse of Pleasanton, Ca. He is a member of Troop 948, sponsored by the Graceway Church. Thanks go to his Scoutmaster, Satyajit Phanse (his dad) for his dedication to scouting and help along the way.

Neil has been active in Scouting and has held leadership positions as Patrol Leader, Instructor, and Senior Patrol Leader, which is the leading youth leadership position in a troop. Neil loves scouting because he was able to experience new things and step out of his comfort zone, especially in the outdoors.

For his Eagle Scout project, Neil built garden beds for the Village High School garden. This is used by their culinary class to grow vegetables. It was a five-day project with about 6 helpers each day. Mr. Evan Branning (Culinary Arts Teacher of Village High School) said, “The new garden beds at Village High School have helped us expand our “Farm to Fork” program. We currently have most of our winter vegetables planted in those beds. It was a very challenging engineering project since the beds are on a slope and Neil did amazing work overcoming many challenges to make beautiful beds for our garden.”

Neil is a senior at Foothill High School in Pleasanton. His interests include cars, mountain biking and calisthenics. He is on the Foothill Cross Country and Track team. He participates in Model UN at Foothill and his varied background includes Taekwondo for 8 years and achieving a first-degree black belt.

His life plans include pursuing a degree in Business Administration.

To earn the rank of Eagle Scout, a Scout must be active in their troop, provide leadership, earn 21 merit badges including the areas of citizenship, camping, communications, cooking and lifesaving or emergency preparedness as well as demonstrate that they live by the principles of the Scout Oath and the Scout Law. They must also plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project benefiting a religious institution, school, or community group.

Anyone interested in joining any level of Scouting can contact the Twin Valley District Executive, Andrew Evans, andrew.evans@scouting.org.