Millstone’s Brian Cullinane built a chicken coop and donated six of his chickens to the Center for Environmental Transformation in Camden to earn the Eagle rank in Boy Scouts. JENNIFER KOHLHEPP MILLSTONE — Brian Cullinane helped his chickens fly the coop to take up residence in Camden.
In an effort to make community members more self-sustaining in a city that has little access to farm fresh produce, the Boy Scout donated six chickens to the Center for Environmental Transformation after building a 5-foot-by-7-foot chicken coop for them there.
Cullinane first learned about the center, which is dedicated to environmental transformation and justice in the Waterfront South neighborhood of Camden, during sophomore year when he went on a retreat there to help rebuild a greenhouse. While trying to decide on a leadership project to attain the rank of Eagle in scouting, the senior at Allentown High School remembered talking to the center’s Director of Sustainability Andrea Ferich about his backyard flock. Ferich told Cullinane that the center raised rabbits and would love a coop of chickens as well.
“I felt like everyone else was doing things here in Millstone, and we don’t really need them,” Cullinane said. “I felt it would be more fulfilling to do something there.”
With the chicken coop, community members will have another means of supporting themselves, Cullinane said.
“They’re getting to learn how to sustain themselves in an environment where they’re not given anything,” Cullinane said. “They can be farmers in a city environment.”
The coop has been added to a garden where the center cultivates crops and compost. The project took Cullinane approximately one year to complete, with the most difficult aspects being the travel time to get to the city and the filing of precise paperwork. The result has been nothing short of rewarding for Cullinane.
“The kids there are excited,” he said. “The two times I’ve been there since the chickens have been there — the kids are all over them. They’re also adding a mosaic on the chicken coop.”
The project helped teach Cullinane the finer points of time and money management. He also learned how to work with companies and individuals for donations, with Forman Industries and Home Depot both making contributions to the project.
“Everything else was family donated,” he said.
Cullinane thanked all who helped him complete the task, including fellow members of the youth group YoungLife, close friends, former and current Boy Scouts and family members.
He hopes that the Camden community will get as much as he does out of keeping chickens. Cullinane hatched his first chick in a sixth-grade science class and has been raising them ever since. He currently has eight large and eight small chickens.
A Boy Scout for seven years, Cullinane attained the Ad Altare Dei emblem and served as assistant patrol leader. Some of his fondest memories of scouting include camping, learning survival skills and “just having fun being a young kid in the woods.”
“Boy Scouts is a way to meet new people,” he said. “It really opened my eyes to new opportunities and gave me a chance to try so many things I had never done before.”
He continued, “I use things that I learned in Boy Scouts every day. I learned how to be responsible and a leader — two of the most important things in life.”
Cullinane plans to attend college in Maryland, where he would like to pursue psychology and deaf studies.