We Own Adventure

Scouting News for the DC Metro Area

Archives for May 2020

Star Scout Cole Thomas Cleans Over 300 Pounds of Tires from Chesapeake Bay Waterway

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I am the Scoutmaster of Troop 422 in Huntingtown, MD and I want to share a story of one of our exceptional Scouts, Star Scout Cole Thomas. Cole was recently working to earn his service hours as part of his rank requirement for Star Scout, and to pass a little time doing a good turn. While Cole only needed 3 hours to qualify as the minimum requirement, he felt that cleaning one of the tidal creeks of the Chesapeake Bay of old discarded tires, he and his father Jason Thomas (Assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 422) put in 5 hours each, to ensure the job was done correctly and the creek was cleaned. They then spent more time and their own money to properly dispose of the tires at the local refuse collection center. Both Jason and Cole exemplify Scout spirit and went above and beyond in making our environment and waterways cleaner.

Life Scout Jacob Mitchell Does a Good Turn

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Life Scout Jacob Mitchell from Troop 176 out of Quantico donated blankets for pets at the Stafford county Animal Shelter, and also 40 pounds of food to the BSA no contact food drive for Stafford county. 3/4 of his food donations were his bake sale supplies intended for a future bake sale that was going to help pay for European Jamboree, but it has been postponed due to Covid-19.

Cub Scouts Award Local Chef “Hometown Hero” Award

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Saturday, Pack 104’s Den 7 Webelos met online to discuss “What makes a Hero.” We discussed the characteristics of heroes and how the recent COVID-19 situation has brought to light “new” community heroes and how everyday people are stepping up to make their communities a better place. Children also designed their own super heroes, discussed Scout heroes (in their age range 9-10 yo) who have been in the news, and decided to award local chef David Guas, of Bayou Bakery a Hometown Hero award on behalf of the den.

When Arlington schools announced their closure, Chef Guas committed to providing free, healthy meals to the community through the end of the school year. Two weeks later, Chef closed his restaurant to focus solely on feeding the community. On May 18th, two representatives from the Den presented the award and certificate to Chef.

Four Pack 1500 Cub Scouts Earn the Dr. Luis W. Alvarez Supernova Award Electronically!

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Four Wolf Cub Scouts in Pack 1500 spent the year working not only on regular advancements and standard NOVA awards, but also striving towards the Dr. Luis W. Alvarez Supernova Award. Already a tough award to achieve due to the level of effort required, these Wolf Scouts were on the verge of completing their supernova requirements when suddenly COVID-19 happened and everything was locked down.

Undeterred, the Scouts (and their fearless mentor) started doing meetings over google hangouts in order to discuss and complete the requirements. Eventually, each scout finished up the grind of the supernova requirements.

Each parent of these Scouts had originally been working hard with their Scouts and collecting everything the Scouts had worked on in a binder to mail to NCAC. After NCAC closed, however, physical submissions were impossible and instead they were starting to be accepted via email. The brave supernova mentor went and picked up each of the binders on the door steps of the scouts houses and brought them back to his house.

After getting the binders, the supernova mentor (it’s too late to go into first person at this point) solicited help from his wife, a teacher and a den leader, to help convert the binders of information into an electronic package for the NCAC STEM committee.

After a lot of scanning, collation, and formatting, each Scout’s binder was converted into a google document that included links to all of the required material, photos/videos of all the activities, and all scanned hand written artifacts that the Scouts had produced. Once it was all collected, the supernova mentor emailed it to the NCAC supernova address and waited.

After a period of time it was announced that the four Scouts had been awarded the Dr. Luis W. Alvarez Supernova Award and that the STEM committee had considered the digital applications exceptional! Truely, the Scouts hard work and determination exemplified the Scout motto, “Do your best.”

I would like to thank the parents for their support in helping their Scouts and my wife for supporting us all when we were all trapped inside.

As a bonus, I have created an example of our supernova submission with the PII removed (although a few photos of my son remain). You can find it here.

Congratulations to David Cohen, Olivia Cohen, Zander Collins, and Whit Stallings on their achievement!

NCAC Summer Camp 2020 Update

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As always, your safety and the safety of all our members, volunteers, and employees is the Boy Scouts of America’s top priority. As such, we have taken a careful and informed approach in evaluating whether to run summer camp this year.  Since the spread of this pandemic, we have been continually monitoring the situation, and consulting with health experts, government officials and other camp professionals.

It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that, after a thorough review, the National Capital Area Council has decided to suspend our resident camp programs at Goshen Scout Reservation, Camp William B. Snyder, Camp Airy, and the Day Camp program for the 2020 summer season. We know camp is an important part of every Scout’s summer, and this decision was not made lightly. This is not the end of our summer programming, however; NCAC has assembled a team of volunteers who are designing a fun, exciting alternative program that provides advancement opportunities for our Scouts. More information on these programs will be coming soon.

As promised, we will be issuing refunds for any payments already made towards camp. Your unit will have the following options for your refund:

  1. Roll over some or all of your payments to Summer 2021.
    We look forward to getting our summer camp community back together as soon as possible; rolling your payment forward as a deposit for next year ensures you will be a part of that fun!
  2. Request a refund for your 2020 fees.
    We appreciate your patience as we determine how to make refunds available.

If you have already registered for summer camp, please discuss with your unit and inform us which option you would prefer by following this link. If we have not heard from you by June 30, 2020, we will roll your deposit to next year.

Our entire team is saddened that we will not be able to see you at camp this summer. This is an extraordinarily challenging time unlike anything we have experienced. Our hope is we all emerge from this challenging moment stronger than before.

Most importantly, we look forward to providing the full range of Scouting programs, including outdoor adventures, as soon as the situation allows. For Scouting At Home information and resources, please visit ncacbsa.org/scouting-at-home.

We hope all our Scouting families stay healthy and positive in our current environment and join us in preparing for future great summer camp experiences at Camp!