CHICOPEE — Bryce Holmes is now an Eagle Scout.

Holmes, 18, is a high schooler at Chicopee Comprehensive High School. He will be honored at a City Council meeting Tuesday night for reaching the top rank of the Boy Scouts program.

The path to get an Eagle rank already is challenging, with scouts having to earn 21 merit badges, hold leadership positions and complete a community service project — all before they turn 18.

Holmes did that, even while undergoing chemotherapy for three years to fight optic pathway glioma, a rare form of cancer that affects the optic nerve. They make up only 5% of all childhood brain tumors, according to the Boston Children’s Hospital.

“He’s pretty excited about the recognition he’s getting,” said Jeffrey Holmes, Bryce Holmes’ father. “He thinks it’s pretty cool.”

Bryce Holmes earned his Eagle rank on Jan. 29, two days shy of when his father earned his own Eagle rank — more than three decades prior.

Bryce Holmes was young when the tumor was found in his brain. The benign tumor will remain in his brain for the rest of his life, his father said. He might need chemotherapy later on.

“He’s not the type of person to let (his cancer) get him down. This is just a part of his life now,” Jeffrey Holmes said.

For his community service project, Bryce Holmes, a member of Boy Scout Troop 303 in South Hadley, raised $6,000 in donations and purchased a gaga ball pit for Lambert-Lavoie Elementary School.

That is where he first started his journey in the Boy Scouts.

Gaga ball is a modern version of the traditional game of dodgeball, except players stand inside an octagonal pit and throw a ball at each other. If a player gets hit in the leg, they must leave the game.

The game is very popular at Boy Scout camps, Jeffrey Holmes said.

Like pickleball, the game is growing fast in popularity. A number of gaga pits have been built around the area in recent years, some as part of Eagle Scout projects.

In August, Jennifer Holmes, Bryce Holmes’ mother, started a GoFundMe on behalf of her son.

“The school didn’t have the funds to buy the ball pit, so Bryce made it happen,” Jeffrey Holmes said. It took three or four months to raise enough money to buy the pit and only a day to put it together, Jeffrey Holmes said.

Bryce Holmes said his vision for the ball pit was to give students at his alma mater a place to play during lunch and gym class.

“I went to Lambert-Lavoie as a child, and now I want to help them and improve their education through gym class,” he wrote on the GoFundMe page.

He described the pit as a 30-inch high, 20-foot octagon made of “composite materials” that will not splinter, and a rubber mat that will prevent flooding when it rains. The pit barriers also will alternate in the school’s colors: blue and yellow.

He said excess funds will be donated to the school’s parent-teacher organization.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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