United States Heritage Award

[bkale]

Are any of your programs running the US Heritage Award ( http://www.nationstrails.com/awards/index.html )?

 

I have looked it over and like it for my Cub scouts...

 

My question is to the last requirement.. "Render a service that benefits a neighborhood or community." Does anyone have a sense as to what level of effort that should be? Has anyone out there completed the program and done a Service project for this? (for my group remember that we are talking 7-9 year olds)...

 

Thanks

[FScouter]

Perhaps there is a discussion about the requirements and how to complete them in the Cub Scout book.

[hotdesk]

I have started working with our Boy Scouts on this award.

 

You probably won't find anything in any of the Scout Handbooks because it is a BSA program.

 

The service that I am going to count for our scouts is Scouting for Food. To me collecting food is a service the benefits the community at large.

 

 

Just one idea though.

[bkale]

I had thought about the Scouting for Food as well... especially for my Cubs.. but I wanted to make sure that the spirit of the award is met.

 

Hard part of Cub Scouting is wanting the boys to really feel they have earned something.. actually earning it.. and not putting so much work on it that they do the typical 6-10 year old wandering away because it is hard.

 

Thanks for the input.

[ScoutNut]

*** REMINDER ***

 

These folks are VERY slow to deliver the awards. Either order your own patch (custom or stock) from one of the many patch companies online, or allow at LEAST 2-3 MONTHS to receive the awards from Nation Trails.

[jpuckett]

We worked on this award with our Wolf Den. It tied in nicely with achievement # 2 in the Wolf book. If you look in these forums there are alot of less than positive posts about the company that offers the award. After reading these posts I think I may do something on my own for the boys rather than send the money to this company

[Sylvar]

We did this as a Bear Den. We did a neighborhood trash pick up. I think the spirit of that req is pretty wide. Doing a service project of almost anykind would meet it.

 

On a side note, I did't have to wait 3 months to get the awards, but it was 4 weeks...but that was 2 years ago.

 

Sylvar

[Pack54CM]

Our council initially promoted this award and I had about half (30) of my Cubs complete the requirements for the silver award. This was at the end of February 2008. I immediately sent in my order for the award sets (including the payment for ~ $200). I have yet to see any awards. My calls and emails go unanswered. I attempted to email Nations Trails today, however, my email was returned as "undeliverable".

 

I am going to take the recommendations from the many posts I have seen here and go about an alternate way to reward/recognize my scouts for completing the requirements.

 

I would strongly urge any troop/pack considering Nations Trails to NOT GET INVOLVED WITH THEM. I know that I have recommended to my District Executive to have their link removed from our council website and to warn others in our council.

[P1115 Cubmaster]

Our Scouts completed what seems to be a very nice curriculum to re-enforce their Citizen Activity badge requirements. However, once I began to inquire about ordering the awards, the online ordering is not available as stated on the pamplet, the website seems to be not updated, and when I sent an email through their website, it came back undeliverable.

 

Does anybody know if these awards are available anywhere else, or another way to contact Nations Trail?

 

Thanks,

Pack 1115 - Cubmaster

[bkale]

Nations Trails has had a major change in customer service. This led me to create a new program.

 

I created the Youth Patriotism Awards. http://www.youthpatriotism.org

 

Please take a moment to look at the program.

 

Thanks

[pixiewife]

I have done the Nations Trails award. I did it with Webelos, but I think what we did for our service project could also be done with younger Cubs. We had a winter clothing drive. We did basically hats, gloves, scarves, and coats. First, the boys talked about different projects that they could do, and we settled on the warm clothing. We, the leaders steered them there because that is what we had really decided we wanted to do, however the boys never knew that. I invited the principle of our school in to our meeting so the boys could ask her directly if they could place drop off boxes in the school. They also asked permission to check and clear the boxes each day before lunch. We then invited our school social worker into our meeting to ask her if she knew of anyplaces that would take the donations. She is always collecting for this sort of thing, so we knew she would be a good resource. She talked to the boys a little bit about the spirit of what they were doing. She also talked to them about what would happen if they saw a kid in our school wearing a coat that the scout knew was donated, and how they had to keep all of that confidential. She agreed to let her office be the place that we would hold and sort all of the collections. We as leaders had also talked to her ahead of time, so she did not go in blind. The boys did not know this.Then the boys made up signs on the computers in the computer lab, and they did the rest. Of course, with a lot of help on our part. This type of project any age can do, because you can have them do as much or as little as possible, and it was the planning part that is the most involved.

All of that being said, I have heard very bad things about Nations and Trails since we earned our award. I would tend to go with the youth patriotism award, as that also has some similar requirements, but has the ability to work on it and continue to earn in future years. I really liked the set up of the Youth Patriotism award, and have recommened it to my pack trainer, and plan on working on it after we are done with rank advancement.

 

Good Luck!

~Pixie