BSA Troop 670 from Manassas, VA worked with the Georgetown South Community Center Manager, Meg Carroll, to collect 2,393 food items and $150 in cash donations to benefit a local neighborhood and nearby apartment complexes. Georgetown South is a low-income community in Manassas, VA with over 4,500 residents. The Scouts in Troop 670 used social media, email, and phone calls to advertise the food drive. Many boys distributed fliers around their neighborhoods to advertise further.
Donations of: nonperishable food, shelf-stable milk, kids’ snacks, cereal, cleaning supplies, masks, and cash were delivered to Scouts’ front porches. Some boys also went door to door collecting donations placed on homeowners’ front porches on a specific date and time. These items were then consolidated on June 13th through a drive up and drop off process and stacked in the Georgetown South Community Center at 9444 Taney Road in Manassas VA.
Scouts and leadership paid special attention to social distancing guidelines to maintain safety during the project. Troop 670 is chartered by Grace United Methodist Church in Manassas VA and is a part of the BSA National Capital Area Council (NCAC), Bull Run Region. Boys logged 2-3 service hours that can be used toward rank advancement or future service awards. Troop 670 is enormously proud of their hard work for the needy families in the community.
Adventures of Pack-Man and Newbie – Bake Off
My father was a Star Scout during the Depression, and when I turned 11 and joined a Scout troop he did as well. Within a short time, he became the Scoutmaster and I learned a lot about Scouting and being a Scoutmaster from him. We shared our names, so when I reentered Scouting (and also became a Scoutmaster), I used his name tag from the ‘60s and his position patch to remind me of his legacy. He did not live to see his grandson become an Eagle Scout, but perhaps one day we will have another Scout leader in the family.
What is Juneteenth?
As a representative of the Greatest Generation, with 83+ continuous years of active Scouting under his belt, Richard “Dick” Haas, affectionately known as “The Ancient One” (TAO) in NCAC, has reached a milestone few can claim this Father’s Day. With active Scouting roles for his Great-Grandsons and their Parents in Aquia District’s Pack 242 – Ronin as a Lion later this year and Stellan as a rising Wolf who just crossed over from Tigers – and TAO’s elder son’s active roles in NCAC Wood Badge leadership training and Aquia District Roundtables – TAO’s active Scouting legacy now stretches across 4 Generations of active Aquia District Haas Scouts & Scouters!!
WWII Navy Vet, awarded for life-saving heroism for actions after the war by rescuing the only two survivors from a bus which plunged into the East River in New York City (using Swimming & Lifesaving skills developed through both BSA and US Navy training), AND… AND (ready for this?!) TAO is a Scouter who actually shook the hand of the Founder of Scouting, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, at the Boy Scout encampment at the 1939 World’s Fair in Queens, NY when TAO was a 13-year old Boy Scout! He also met Dan Beard when TAO and his fellow Scouts stopped in at the Scouting Museum while hiking along the Palisades-Alpine Trail on the cliffs above the Hudson River in New Jersey. He also met “Green Bar” Bill Hillcourt, the Scouter who literally wrote the book on the Patrol Method, when Green Bar Bill was a Staffer on TAO’s Wood Badge Course in 1966. So, come on up and shake TAO’s hand and connect with this walking, talking, living history, should your Scouting Trails cross!
Guess you can say my brother, Alan, and I were born into Scouting in Manhattan, New York City, as our Dad was Scoutmaster of Troop 712 when we were just wee lads. We went on many Troop campouts in all kinds of weather from the time we were about 5-years old until we were old enough to become Cub and then Boy Scouts in both Manhattan and later when we moved to Rockville Centre (RVC), NY. In RVC our Dad became our Scoutmaster again, this time of Troop 40, which turned out to have originally been Troop 1 back in 1910 (before having a lapse in its early chartering years) and this is the Troop that National BSA validated as having produced the first US Eagle Scout – Arthur Eldred. Proud Scouting history seems to find TAO! 😊
TAO continues to inspire, train and impact untold numbers of Scouters and Scouts through his on-going servant leadership roles at monthly Aquia District Scouts BSA Roundtable breakout sessions and on NCAC Wood Badge and Aquia District Bear Claw leadership Courses’ Staffs. What’s Bear Claw? Another example of TAO’s legacy to Scouts across multiple generations. He started Bear Claw in his home District in New York before moving to Virginia and could have just let Bear Claw drop when he moved with his wife, Rita, to Virginia, but instead TAO brought it with him to share, planting new roots in Aquia District. So, his impact now also includes 30 years of Youth-led leadership training in New York and another 11 years (and counting) of Bear Claw in Aquia District. TAO has served on nine NCAC Wood Badge leadership courses and two National Jamboree Staffs. He’s been known to say: “I am entering my 83rd consecutive year in Scouting and am still learning. Keeps me young at heart!” He is active in his religious community at Beth Sholom Temple in Fredericksburg, VA and still golfs and fishes with his buddies from Falls Run.