Santa Fe Trail rest stop (provided photo)
If you frequent the Santa Fe Trail, you’ll appreciate what neighbor Vance Holub did for his Eagle Scout project this year.
Holub, who lives on Swiss and is a junior at Jesuit Dallas, started brainstorming for the project this summer, and he knew he wanted to do something that would benefit a large group of people. He considered some of the local parks, but then his mom, a runner, suggested Santa Fe Trail.
Holub, front right, working with his friends (provided photo)
“Since it’s a fairly young trail, it doesn’t have a lot of amenities on it,” Holub points out, which made it the perfect choice.
He decided to raise funds to build a rest stop along the trail, but he had to get the OK from the City of Dallas. It was going to be expensive — upwards of $19,000! — but the city approved, and Friends of Santa Fe Trail promised to help him reach his fundraising goal.
Holub hit the streets the next day, handing out business cards to anyone who would take one, sending them to his GoFundMe page to donate. He approached local businesses, posted flyers around town, and he pushed the link to his GoFundMe page on Facebook.
Then Friends of Santa Fe Trail posted the GoFundMe page on its Facebook page, and it garnered hundreds of shares. Cycling groups picked it up, and someone even posted it on Nextdoor.
“It ended up going a lot farther than I thought it would,” Holub says.
Within a month and a half he raised more than $10,000. With money from Friends of Santa Fe Trail, he had enough to build a landing pad with two benches, a water fountain and a trash can.
The City of Dallas did most of the construction, but he and a group of friends helped with the beginning stages, mostly cutting and tying rebar. 
“From there the city did the rest,” he says. The water fountain was the last thing to go in, and it was installed on Oct. 14.
There will be an official ribbon cutting this Saturday, Dec. 12, by Friends of Santa Fe Trail and the Dallas Park and Recreation Department. The ceremony will begin at 10 a.m., and it will be followed by a short reception.
To learn more about the project and see photos, check out Vance’s Imgur album.
