159 Scouts Section

The Cause

My name is Scott Chomistek and I am the treasurer for our Scouts Chapter and also a Beavers leader. We run an amazing program for youth aged 5-18, and we would like to make our program even more vibrant. Currently our programs are funded completely by fundraising - we do four bottle drives a year and have a big popcorn fundraiser as well. With no fundraising due to COVID, this hits our organization particularly hard. We would like to have more programming for our youth, but costs are usually prohibitive for the extras that we would really like to do. Scouts Canada is part of the World Organization of the Scouting Movement. We have not been involved in global activities for some time, and would like to retain youth in the program for National and International Jamborees in the interest of helping to raise Global Thinking Youth. We would also like to spend additional money on youth programming. This is often presented in the forms of Camps and Outdoor Activities.

Scouting is a great opportunity for youth to get acquainted with the outdoors and engage in outdoor pursuits, citizenship, creative pursuits, and Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) related activities. We think that by having children attend these international events, we are creating exemplary citizens for the future, and that this could lead to many other beneficial things for our organization. This can also serve as a recruitment tool for the organization. When youth are between the ages of 5-7, they are in the Beaver program and the ability to attend international jamborees and additional camps can really help increase the amount of youth that are willing to participate in what we believe to be wholesome, engaging, organic programming. With this end goal in mind, we feel that increased camps will result in increase engagement for future jamboree attendance.

See the attached website for the 2023 International Jamboree.
http://www.2023wsjkorea.org/_html/index.html

A $5,000 contribution would help run at least one and probably two more weekend camps. At these camps, we do mainly outdoor activities involving hiking, camping, woodworking, crafts, orienteering, winter activities, and bonding group meals, at these camps, which help our youths become engaged in worthwhile lifelong skills while becoming better citizens.

Please consider our group for this funding! I think we do a great job with our youth and this would be an incredible opportunity for them!

Who Will it Benefit?

This money will benefit youth ages 5-18.

I have attached some pictures at the end showing the fun activities we do. Last year, we did a weekend sleepover at Camp Valaqua, went bowling, did a Zoo Sleepover, went to a Climbing Wall, visited the firehall, had a fun outdoor night-time adventure with flashlights and glow in the dark rocks, went snowshoeing, created all sorts of crafts, did COVID zoom meeting science experiments, had a potluck Christmas dinner, had a skating party, the list goes on! We have also made a concerted effort to keep meetings going through COVID with online meetings. We have lots of fun every week and we think these youth have great memories of scouting!