Cultivating beauty and nature
Brookfield teen makes it his Eagle Scout project to enhance Newtown animal sanctuary named for Sandy Hook victim
NEWTOWN — When it came time for 17year-old Boy Scout Nathanial Varda to choose his big Eagle Scout service project, he knew where he wanted to invest his time and energy.
Revitalizing a meadow and cultivating the natural wildlife at the Catherine Violet Hubbard Animal Sanctuary in Newtown, which was created in honor of 6-year-old Catherine Hubbard, who was killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, is a project that hits close to home.
“It was a cause close to my heart that was also supporting something that I love, as well,” the Brookfield teen said. “Being able to leave my impact on it would be a great honor.”
Varda was in third grade at another local school at the time of the shooting, and has grown up with the memory of that terrible day.
“For the kids in this area, it’s their 9/11. The anniversary rolls around in December and everyone is a little quieter,” said Varda’s mother, Kathy Craughwell-Varda. “It’s a level of mindfulness that will stay with them.”
Varda, a junior at Immaculate High School in Danbury, can still recall the exact spot he sat in for hours while they waited for news, his classmates spread around the room, teachers getting updates on their phones. He’s grown up alongside the sisters and brothers of the first-graders who were killed that day, some of whom are now close friends.
Now, the Boy Scout from Troop
135 in Brookfield is helping bring beauty and nature to the sanctuary, with plans to fully restore four acres of meadow on the 34acre property, and build homes — birdhouses — for native Eastern Bluebirds there.
Varda first heard about the sanctuary as he was heading into high school, and then worked on a service project at the sanctuary this past summer. He was captured by its beauty, said Kathy Craughwell-Varda.
Jenny Hubbard, Catherine’s mother, said her dream was for the sanctuary to be “a place where people can feel Catherine’s gentle touch. Where they can actually exhale and encounter the peace and serenity that was so much Catherine.”
Nathanial Varda’s project plans to add to what the Hubbards and over 1,000 volunteers have already accomplished.
Nature helps Varda relax, the Scout said. He hopes that “being able to see birds flying throughout the field, and seeing these beautiful meadow flowers,” will help others do the same for years to come.
Bringing a plan to fruition
In mid-November, Varda met with Hubbard to discuss the project. Over the years, the sanctuary has placed great emphasis on youth leadership and involvement, including a children’s advisory board and junior board. So far, involvement like Varda’s has been encouraging, Hubbard said.
“When young adults are given the opportunity to step up and take a leadership role, they take it and they do it really well,” she said. Varda’s proposal fit the bill.
After meeting with Hubbard, Varda began extensive research on Eastern Bluebirds and seeding for the meadow, whittling his ambitious plan for 20 birdhouses to eight after research revealed the birds are quite territorial. By late January, he had a proposal that he presented to Hubbard, and by February, he had received district approval.
Varda has started raising funds for the project.
Last weekend, his friends and other Scouts held a socially distanced gathering in his backyard to start putting the eight birdhouses together. CraughwellVarda said the day was marked by the sounds of laughter and chatter and music.
He’s focused on getting the birdhouses built and installed in the next two weeks, and the seed will be delivered in May, Varda said.
He said his teammate and classmate, Freddy Hubbard, older brother of Catherine, plans to till the field before seeding begins.
Impact for years to come
An Eagle Scout project is supposed to have a lasting, sustainable effect on a community.
“That’s something that he’s craving,” said Craughwell-Varda. “The meadow will continue to grow and flower.”
Hubbard said that it’s encouraging to see the kids affected by Sandy Hook continuing to give back to their community in meaningful ways.
“I feel like a lot of kids in the school and in the community lost a piece of their innocences,” said Hubbard of Sandy Hook. So, she said it’s remarkable “to see them turn that tragedy in their own lives into something so good and giving back when, quite frankly, they really don’t have to.”
In the wake of the shooting, Craughwell-Varda, a museum curator, said she took Varda and his older sister to help select and save memorial materials for the library. Together, they looked through a garage full of remembrances. She wanted to show her children that even when one person does something horrific, thousands of others reach out with kindness, she said.
“It would be completely understandable if kids impacted by the Sandy Hook tragedy curled up in a ball or were very jaded towards society,” Hubbard said. Instead, kids like Varda have chosen to “bring goodness and life back into a community,” which, she said, brings her hope.