The holidays are upon us which as for many makes this a very busy time, and which also means less time to post. December is the one month of the year our troop takes a break from camping. Our Troop does an annual fundraiser selling Christmas trees and wreaths and that monopolizes all the weekends available, but it helps fund our Scout program for the next 11 months.
One night during the sale one of the Scouts parents approached me as they’d recently heard that about a woman who had just moved in with her sister in town. As I was told (and never asked for any more detail,) he woman had just moved with her four children to escape an abusive relationship. All they had was the clothes on their backs. Her sister (who has two kids of her own) was the only place she had to turn. The parent asked if I could spread the word in the Troop in case there was anything anyone could do to help out. I promised I would do a lot more than that.
Service is one the tenets that separates Scouting from many of the other extracurricular activities kids have to chose from. From our roots BP sought to instill good will in the young men that he guided.
“The good turn will educate the boy out of the groove of selfishness.”
As Scouts and Scouters we have many opportunities for service. Some times that may just be getting a job done (for free) that just needs to be done. The most impacting service opportunities for me are the rare ones where you get a chance to see the impact your service has made first hand.
We spread the word among the Scouts… and and the Cub Scouts, and the parish, and friends, and families and even one very generous employer. One of the Scouts brought it to his own school’s youth service group and rallied them. (He’d make an awesome patrol leader if we could get him out camping with us).
This past Thursday we put all the racks away from the tree sale and then got to deliver everything that had been donated for this family. Let’s just say multiple large vehicles were required to get the gifts and the Scouts over there. The sister was grateful to tears. What her sister was going through I wouldn’t wish on anybody. But to have to go through it with the children at Christmas was even worse.
I know I’ve got some really nice Christmas presents coming this year but it’s gonna be tough to beat the feeling of being able to help a family when they really needed it.
