Nihar Ashish Jain spent a bulk of the summer at Caswell Memorial State Park.

It was there that he worked on his Eagle Scout Project – the highest achievement or attainable rank for the Boys Scouts of America – redoing the signs at the park along the Stanislaus River near Ripon.

One of the signs Jain created was to help boaters safely get in and out of Caswell to the Stanislaus River. “We heard of the many 9-1-1 calls of boaters being stranded,” he said on Monday.

He had plenty of help including Signarama-Manteca for support – Jain put in 45 hours and had 32 workers, totaling 210 manhours.

The ground work started in May. Nihar Jain reached out to the California Department of Parks and Recreation for information of the local state parks and their needs. “We looked at New Hogan and other parks in the vicinity,” said his father, Ashish Jain.

Caswell also needed replacement signs for Willow Beach and the fence line hiking trail.

Nihar Jain’s work on the Willow Beach sign consisted of some woodburning and new vinyl letterings. For that, he held a fundraiser, selling buttermilk and lemonade at $3 per cup apiece.

The hiking trail sign was made more visible and durable. The new sign is made up of a metal-aluminum composite.

On Sept. 1, Jain was awarded the Eagle Scout Rank at the BSA-Greater Yosemite Council Office in Modesto.

A freshman at East Union High – he’s 13 – Jain is one of the youngest scouts from BSA-Greater Yosemite Council to become an Eagle Scout.

He joined the scouts when he was 6. Nihar Jain was just two years removed from immigrating to the U.S. from India with his family.

In addition, he attended McParland Elementary School.

“Nihar always wanted to an Eagle Project related to conservation, nature or safety of the community,” his mother Supriya Jain said.