New Laguna Beach Eagle Scout Mason Bruderer creates dog park bench for his project

A Laguna Beach High student has achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, putting a creative skill to good use to help others who share his passion for dogs.

Mason Bruderer, 16, who will start his junior year at Laguna Beach High on Thursday, recently achieved the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America, following the completion of a project that brought a new park bench to Moulton Meadows Park.

The bench was placed in the temporary dog play area at Moulton Meadows Park. It bears a plaque that reads, in part, “For dog lovers and the city of Laguna Beach.”

Mayor Bob Whalen read from a proclamation recognizing Bruderer’s achievement before inviting him to the podium to describe the work.

Laguna Beach resident Mason Bruderer stands behind a park bench that he created for his Eagle project at Moulton Meadows Park.

(Courtesy of Mason Bruderer)

“For my project, I built a green park bench for the Moulton Meadows dog park currently in construction,” Bruderer said at City Hall on Tuesday. “I decided to do the project because I went up to the dog park a year or so ago. …I saw that the park was just like this little fenced [off] area.

“I’m a dog owner. I have two dogs, and I was also looking for my Eagle project at the time, and I decided, ‘Hey, what if I could do my project for this, and maybe I could add something to this dog park.’

Bruderer went before the city’s parks and recreation committee to propose the project, where he learned the city was looking into expanding the dog play area.

A GoFundMe page was created to raise the money to acquire the materials needed to create the bench.

Eagle Scout Mason Bruderer receives a round of applause at the Laguna Beach City Council meeting on Tuesday.

(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)

“We needed a lot of lumber and stuff, so we created a GoFundMe to raise $800, which would be the amount of budget we would need for all the supplies to build the entire thing,” said Bruderer, a member of Boy Scout Troop 35 in Laguna Beach. “Graciously, Ganahl Lumber decided to donate basically all the wood we needed, so we had an excess of money left over that we just had sitting around.

“So today, I have a check with the rest of the money that we would like to give to the city and allocate to finishing the dog park construction project.”

Bruderer then handed over the check for $585 to Whalen, who invited the young resident to come up with his family for a picture in front of the dais.

Through his first two years of high school, Bruderer has run cross-country for the Breakers. He has also held acting roles in the school’s theatrical productions of “She Kills Monsters’’ and “Mamma Mia!” Bruderer said he hopes to get into a good art school.