snugharborlabs

Thanks for the input - papa: I'll let the kid's mom know to keep them out of uniform when they sell the stuff at the tag sale, and to make sure they let the world know they're not fundraising for BSA, but for the other cause. FWIW - the person raising the issue is a long-time scouter, she's active at the council level, and has 2 sons that made Eagle through the troop. She's a good egg trying to protect the troop from possible issues.

SSScout: Our CO is the Lion's Club. They hold the charter for 2 packs, 2 large troops (50+ boys each) and a venture crew in a town of 14K people. About 220 boys are in scouts in this town. Our big service to them is their summer carnival - parking lot cleanup arranged by the packs, and set up and tear down of the tents, tables, chairs and food service set up is on the troops. My husband (who's known as the community service ASM - he handles all the community service oversight ;-)) is proud to say our troop by far outrepresents the other troop in town with our boys helping. We definitely have a good group of boys, and we're proud of them.

"While a First Class Scout, take part in service project(s) totaling at least 6 hours of work. These projects must be approved by your Scoutmaster." To answer those folks that posted about our troop adding to the requirements - we know what the requirements are. Unfortunately our town doesn't have such projects being organized on a regular basis to have our boys participate in. Our local scout reservation is several towns over with several strong local troops helping it out. Our town is very small but is blessed with two very active scout troops, plus many girl scout troops doing service projects as well. We have a very large group of boys reaching the Star and Life ranks, with no real group of older boys reaching Eagle above them to help out on. So this intrepid group (18 - 14 yr olds) are creating their own. So they do drives for our local food pantry, animal shelter, clean up our local park upteen times over etc. etc. This boy wanted to help the soldiers overseas directly. I'll be sure to mention to the SM to discourage direct fundraising the next time. Thanks again for all your input.

Thanks fred8033 for your input. Don't mind the bluntness at all :-) . We ended up formalizing the process with forms/signatures because we were having boys mishmash time and calling themselves done on service without the SM preapproval aspect in place. We also had big issues with boys cleaning a neighbor's/grandparent's yard and calling it community service, and not having proper supervision (just a mom in the house and fireworks being set off in the woods by some of the boys - ugh!) in the process. Sounds formal, but adults are not being smart about a bunch of boys running amok and calling it service hours. My husband (an ASM in the troop) was a little bent about the worries of raising money - he's up in arms that here we have a boy trying really hard to do a good deed for the soldiers in a way that is meaningful for the boy and a committee member is worried about raising money for a good cause. I guess since this is the first time we've had a boy intent on just raising money first and foremost, we may be overstepping the rules. Other times the boys have been raising donations of goods (newspapers for lining kitty litter boxes etc.), and the money was a sidenote. We'll make note of it and encourage boys to just look to raise item donations instead.

With regards to the "service project" issue, our troop's take on the 6 hours community service is to have the boys develop their leadership skills by doing mini service "projects". We've gone round robin any number of times among the committee, and along with ALOT of input from our local council, have decided to stick with this idea. Our local council is pretty particular on Eagle service projects (a whole other issue!), and our SM and troop leadership believe it helps the boys develop their skills in preparation for Eagle. I've read the BSA rules about fundraising, but am confused about the actual application - many of our boys raise $$ for local welfare groups - we had a boy do a service project just today for our local non-profit animal shelter - he was collecting newspapers and donated items, but also ended collecting $600 to give to the shelter. We have a great town willing to help, which is a good thing. I guess I confused as to the difference -

For every $50 donated to the organization, the Hugs Project (http://www.thehugsproject.com/) donates care packages of toiletries and most especially special helmet coolers for the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The committee member thinks that the boy shouldn't be raising money specifically, nor should he be doing this "out of his home". The tag sale is being done like any other tag sale - at the end of his driveway, using items people have donated to sell. I don't have any issue with it, and I'm the Advancement Chair for the troop. My husband, an ASM with the troop, told the boy it was an excellent, novel idea, and another ASM and the SM approved it. But this committee member went to our council's Eagle advisor with her concerns, whose only comment was, don't do this as an Eagle project. You guys think this is a legit service project?

I need help determining if there's a problem with a First Class Scout's service project for his Star rank. We have a scout wanting to raise money to donate to a non-profit organization "The Hugs Project" for the military as his service project. His plan is to take donated items and sell them at a tag sale/bake sale and donate the cash to this 501c non-profit. This involves requesting donated items, organizing a tag sale at his house, and supervising fellow scouts to man the tables during a day-long tag sale. The rest of the unsold items will be donated to a local charity. He needs to come up with $50 as a minimum donation for this non-profit. The project was reviewed by 2 ASM's and signed off on by our SM. Now we have a committee member concerned this doesn't fit with BSA policies. As Advancement Chair I cannot locate any reference as to this not being a suitable service project for a scout looking to advance to Star. Your thoughts??