A Prospect High School senior wants to memorialize a fellow student who died in a car crash last spring.

Campbell resident David D’Amico, 17, is looking for donations to fund his Eagle Scout bench and tree project, which will serve as a memorial to Niyal Sanghi.

According to D’Amico, Niyal died in May after visiting Skyline Boulevard overlooking Palo Alto to take photos of the mountains and valleys on the spring morning of his 17th birthday. When he headed south toward his home in Saratoga, his car veered off the road and into a tree. Niyal died at the scene.

“A week or so before Niyal’s death, I was trying to figure out what to do my project on,” David told this newspaper. “I wanted my Eagle project to mean something. The weekend he passed, it clicked.”

David, a member of Boy Scout Troop 233 in San Jose, is trying to raise $5,000 to complete the memorial, which will be made up of two granite benches and a new crepe myrtle tree. The memorial will be placed in front of the school near a mural featuring the school’s panther mascot.

David set up a GoFundMe account for the project and had nearly reached his $5,000 goal at press time.

Though David and Niyal weren’t close friends, but they knew each other through mutual friends during their sophomore year. In their junior year, David says they talked more and shared some classes. The two would have graduated together this spring.

According to David, he pitched his project to the school and the district’s board of trustees in November. It was officially approved in January.

“After I got the approval from the district and school I went to speak with (Niyal’s) family. They loved the idea for the project and said Niyal would have thought it was too much.”

David says he remembers Niyal as “humble” and “focused on his friends.”

“He didn’t want anything to revolve around him,” David says. “He was adventurous. You could always find him with a camera.”

David plans to complete the memorial before graduation in June. Ideally it would wrap up this month, but he says he needs help from an arborist and someone who can help cut the granite slabs to form both benches.

Completing the project will have double the significance, David says.

“Finally getting my Eagle would mean so much to me, especially with this project. This project means so much to me.”

To make a donation, visit gofundme.com/NiyalMemorial.