Each Veteran’s Day scouts from around the George Mason District place flags on Veteran’s graves at the National Memorial Park/King David Memorial Gardens in Falls Church, VA. This year the event drew over 300 people (Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA, Sea Scouts, Girl Scouts and Heritage Girls) who placed ~2,700 flags. Our thanks to Dignity Memorial for supporting this effort and proving food, drink and the flags.
SPACE STILL AVAILABLE FOR YOUTH CONTINGENT MEMBERS!
2023 National Jamboree Registration is on-going!
Sign up today for the 2023 Jamboree scheduled for July 19-28, 2023.
Registration is open on the National website at https://jamboree.scouting.org. The National Capital Area Council is sending up to 10 contingent units to Jamboree. Adult registration to attend as part of the Council contingent is now closed.
The early-bird pricing has ended, but registration has not. NCAC cost for Jamboree is $2125 per person and includes the Jamboree, transportation to and from Summit, patches, and more! Camperships are available for youth participants. The campership application is available on NCAC’s website.
Youth must be at least 12 years of age to attend; participants age 18-21 will attend as youth for this Jamboree. Participants will be assigned to a contingent unit the end of 2022. There will be a mandatory overnight event scheduled at Camp Snyder in June 2023. Contingent units will also meet prior to departing for Jamboree; details will be distributed by selected Scoutmasters.
Check out this video (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i8AErWKYa0sSnG0g5dEyrkZgHzs44A3H/view?usp=sharing) to see what Jamboree has in store for you.
More information, including payment schedule, and campership applications are available on the Council’s website at http://ncacbsa.org/jamboree. If you have any questions, please reach out to Alex Keenan at ADLKeenan@gmail.com or Bob MacKichan at robert.mackichan@hklaw.com. We look forward to seeing you at Jamboree next year!
This fall has been a productive one for Goshen Scout Reservation! We hosted two work weekends in October – one run by the Goshen Staff Alumni Association (GSAA) and one open to youth and adult volunteers.
The GSAA accomplished a number of projects, including:
The Volunteer Work Weekend projects included:
Thank you to all the Scouting volunteers, alumni, and current camp staff who attended and for all their service to Goshen Scout Reservation! We hope to see them and others at future weekends.
Be sure to save the dates for the Spring Work Weekends:
Akela’s Trail is a leadership training for Cub Scout leaders has been cancelled. It is a great way to learn the basics of Cub Scouting or take more advanced trainings to help the Pack and program grow. Akela’s Trail has something to offer everyone. Being held virtually in the comfort of your home on November 19, 2022 from 8:30am-Noon. Click the registration link for more information and the course descriptions.
I don’t think I ever truly knew what STEM really was until I discovered NOVA awards and did my first one. It was much more difficult than I expected, taking a lot of time, energy, and creativity. The more I worked on it, the more I learned and became interested in the world of STEM. Specifically I loved the aerospace and engineering parts of it, having watched several rocket launches for activities and building a fan powered car out of a gatorade bottle and some bottle caps. After completing four of these NOVA awards, I set my sights on the biggest challenge yet – the Supernova.
It took months to complete all of the requirements and challenges for this award, but even though at times I wanted to drop it all together, I pushed through. My favorite activities were the coding project I did, shadowing a heliophysicist, and teaching cub scouts how to make a fan powered car. Especially during the shadowing, I learned so much about what it’s like to work at NASA, and so much on recent projects and interesting things happening in the world of engineering right now.
When I finished my first Supernova award, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue and do another one. But with spare time on my hands, and a growing interest in STEM I began it. My favorite activities were creating the Electroscope for the nuclear science merit badge, running a meeting with different science experiments, and writing an essay on the history of nuclear power.
I think the Thomas Edison Supernova opened the door to my interest in nuclear sciences, beginning with the all day merit badge course which I really enjoyed – going in depth on atoms and fission which I found particularly interesting. While doing the essay on nuclear power I felt myself getting really intrigued with each piece of information I found, causing me to write out the 1,500 words in only an hour. Everything about it made me nervous, how such tiny things could explode cities and have so much power, but it also excited me to think that was possible.
After completing it I was really proud, but also very glad for all the opportunities it provided me with. I got to meet some fantastic people, and learn a lot about myself and the STEM world.
Sydney is pictured above (right) along with Lauren (left) who also earned the Edison Supernova, and Mr. Bruce Donlin (center), the Supernova Mentor for both scouts. As Sydney and Lauren display their Supernova medals, Mr. Donlin displays the Silver Pyramid, a STEM Award he was presented for creating a Council-wide, large scale, sustainable STEM event!
Local Scouts Help Alleviate Food Insecurity with Annual Food Drive
One in Three Residents Struggle as Scouts Begin 36th Annual Food Drive
NOVEMBER 4, 2022, WASHINGTON, DC— Local Scouts will be kicking off the 33rd annual Scouting for Food this month. Scouts will post notes, distribute flyers, and advertise virtually to homes throughout the DC metro area on the first weekend of November, then return to collect non-perishable food items on the second weekend, primarily Saturday, November 12, 2022.
Scouting for Food is one of the largest annual food drives in the metropolitan area. Scouts of all ages, from 6 to 21 years old, will participate in Scouting for Food.
“”Last year our scouts collected over 667,000 pounds of food for needy families across our Council territory and that’s about the loaded weight of a Boeing 747 as it’s getting ready to take off,” said Craig Poland, CEO and Scout Executive of the National Capital Area Council, BSA. “Through our Scouting for Food effort we provide the opportunity for scouts to learn the impact possible when they directly help the community.”
According to the Capital Area Food Bank’s 2022 Hunger Report, food insecurity affects approximately 33 percent of people in the Washington, D.C. area. High food and fuel prices have impacted family budgets and contributed to a greater and more desperate need for regular access to nutritious food.
Scouting for Food is held every fall prior to Thanksgiving. Local food banks rely on the efforts of the Scouts to stock their shelves for the upcoming holiday months when food demands are the highest. Items needed include canned protein (tuna, salmon, chicken, peanut butter); soups and stews (beef stew, chili, meat-based soups); 100% fruit juices (all sizes); grains (pasta, whole grain pasta, rice, brown rice, boxed macaroni and cheese); cereals (multi-grain, low sugar cereals, oatmeal); canned vegetables; and canned fruits.
In an effort to promote sustainability and further the Scouting’s tradition of conservation, the Scouting for Food event has eliminated the distribution of plastic bags from its program and will instead use self-adhesive posts, fliers, and door hangs. Community members are asked to provide bags or boxes with their donations to aid in the collection process.
Scouting for Food is co-sponsored by the Safeway Foundation.
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About Scouts, BSA and the National Capital Area Council
Scouts, BSA provides the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training, which helps young people be “Prepared. For Life. ™ The Scouting organization is composed of 2.6 million youth members between the ages of 6 and 21 and more than a million volunteers in local councils throughout the United States and its territories. For more, please visit www.Scouting.org.
National Capital Area Council was organized in 1911 and today stands as one of the oldest and largest councils in America. Scouts from the NCAC do over 400,000 hours of community service each year. The Council territory includes the District of Columbia; Frederick, Montgomery, Prince George’s, Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary’s counties in Maryland; and in Virginia the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun, Fauquier, Spotsylvania, Caroline, King George, Stafford and Culpeper as well as the independent cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas, Manassas Park and Fredericksburg in Virginia; and the U.S. Virgin Islands. For more information, please visit www.NCACBSA.org.
