Today, I am going to tell you about one of the organizations that I am involved with and what we've done over the past couple of weeks.
See, I am a Boy Scout leader. I serve as the Cubmaster for Pack 23 in Pleasant Gap. Our most recent pack meeting, we had two presenters from Trout Unlimited come to talk to the boys about fly fishing. The played a short movie about what it is like to tie flies, catch trout and release them back into the stream. Of course, they showed the whole life cycle of the trout - from fertilization of the eggs, through each part of the life cycle. It was really cool to see baby trout hatchlings come out of their eggs, and drag their yolk sacks along with them. I had no idea. Neither did the boys. They thought it was great. Of course, they really liked watching the part where the fisherman had the trout on the line and it fought and danced and jumped until he finally brought it in... where he could release it back into the stream.
As the Cubmaster, I play the role of the Master of Ceremonies for our pack meetings. Once a month, I'm up front, leading our boys through the presentation of the flag, pledge of allegiance and other formalities. I also get to present the boys with their awards they earned. Whether it's a simple bead or belt loop or a big award like an advancement in rank, it's nice to see the pride on their faces when I call them up to the front to get their award in front of everyone.
This weekend, our older scouts - the Webelos Scouts (4th and 5th graders) will be going on a hike with the same aged boys from the pack in the next town over. It will be a great time - I'm sure it will be cold, but for a couple of hours - there will be no video games, no T.V., no school, no messy house. It will just be the kids and the parents, hiking along part of the Allegheny Front Trail.
Not all of our hikes are in the "Great Outdoors." Just this past weekend, we completed the "Scouting for Food" drive to collect canned goods for our local food bank. The week before, we put plastic bags on each door in our town. There was a note inside, asking people to put the bag out the next Saturday for pickup - with a few canned goods or other non-perishable food items like pasta or mac and cheese - whatever they can spare. Our boys collected these items and we took them to our food bank, right in town. Our pack of cub scouts and our boy scout troop (boys ages 11-18) collected 3073 items for the food bank. This will help feed the 25 families (a total of 75 people) who seek assistance from the food bank for the next 2-3 months. What's really cool is that scouts from all over the county did the same thing on the same days. We helped to stock the food banks in State College, Bellefonte and surrounding communities.
So, what did that cost me? Nothing, really. It was just a few hours of my time on each of those days. I got to spend that time with my son, Stephen, too. He's a good kid and he likes to help our community. It's good to see him grow and become a young leader. He enjoys scouts and I know that these times will stick with him, as my years as a youth in scouts stuck with me.
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