Toro Park, a gem of the county parks system, finally has a place for a pooch to run free.

In order to become an Eagle Scout, one of the last things a scout must do is a community service project, and what exactly that may be is largely up to the scout himself.

For Nathan Poggemeyer, who grew up in Seaside, it didn’t take much thinking – time he spent at Toro Park in his youth, including overnight camping trips with his scout troop, left a lasting mark.

“In a lot of ways, I grew up around Toro,” Poggemeyer says. “I always wanted to give back what I had as a kid.”

In part of the time he spent there in his youth, he also worked on a project as a student at the International School of Monterey, a K-8 school in Seaside, where he helped revamp the camping area. It was through doing that, he says, and working with County Parks staff, that he realized a solvable problem: Parks staff was always having to get on visitors about keeping their dogs on leash, but the park also didn’t have a dog park where dogs could be off leash.

So he set out to change that, and he did: On March 28, the county hosted a grand opening at the Quail Meadows Dog Park, now officially open to the public. The timing of the event aligned with Poggemeyer’s spring break – he’s currently attending the University of Oregon – but if things hadn’t gone sideways, it would have happened sooner. In the winter of 2023, culverts backed up and forced stormwater runoff to course through the park, which set off a chain of delays. But the park looks pristine now.

Poggemeyer built it, with the help of his scout troop, with about $1,600 he raised via GoFundMe, and estimates the total cost was $2,250 – the remaining balance was paid by a sponsor, Advanced Restoration. He says it took 432 total man hours to build.