Good Turn For America: has anyone begun this? What are you doing?

[Laurie]

The Good Turn For America, details found here:

http://www.goodturnforamerica.org/

is very appealing to me to put into practice in the pack. What we are planning on doing is the following:

 

1) To address food. We are planning to have more food drives, and since the CO is on the emergency call list for those waiting on food stamps, WIC, and the like, we know there's an ongoing need. Therefore, rather than one food drive, we'll have 3 or 4 -- or we'll begin to collect food at pack meetings -- or we might do a combination of both.

 

2) To address physical fitness. Our graduation picnic is usually without a program. In fact, it's just been food and social time in the past. We changed it to graduation, and then I asked the dens to each contribute some games of their choice that the entire family can take part in. We are hoping to have an obstacle course, a game of soccer or kickball, maybe some baseball, badminton, croquet, and horseshoes. The idea is to get everyone on their feet and actively participating, but the boys get to plan it. We will add a family hike too, but that may not be until fall.

 

Toys For Tots has had a shortage of gifts the past two years, particularly for boys the ages of the Cubs. I'll run the idea of a toy drive in conjuction with them by the committee and CO to see if we can help in that area.

 

We are hoping to help with gardening and clean up around the CO, but rather than once a year, maybe a couple times per year. We have done nothing for them for a couple of years, so we'd like to get more involved in lending a hand. Many of the members of this church are elderly too, so having some younger folks around should be a good thing.

 

I'm open to ideas, and I'd love to hear what others are doing.

[Laurie]

We have officially begun our GTFA projects for 2004. We are currently working on promoting an American Red Cross blood drive. The boys and I, all in uniform, headed out to local business armed with posters announcing the drive. It is being planned by a woman in the business association of the town our CO is in. She planned; we offered leg work and promotions and any other "busy work" she could use. As we were driving home from one shopping area, one of the boys asked, "do we get something for this?" I have told them about GTFA, and they will serve without a patch, but actually doing the event makes it more real. And yeah, they get something

 

Today we're heading out to a conservation day planned by a local branch of an environmental group. Ages 2 - 45 in our group, which numbers 7! Everyone is excited as this is more than just trash pick up; it's also helping to clear a trail that has become overrun with weeds and brush. And we were told that it used to be a Boy Scout camp--small but something we are hoping to explore.

 

So far I'm told that little else is happening with GTFA locally. How about all of you? Isn't this program getting a lot of people excited, or is it too soon and planning is still taking place?

[Herms]

Weve had two services projects so far this Calendar year.

 

The first was a tree planting in the community. Pretty amazing turnout, 32 boys showed up!! We even had people who live nearby brought over shovels and pitched in. It was great! Got 60 trees, which where donated to us, planted and fertilized. The organization, which gave us the trees, even donated a nice little Arbor Day patch for the boys.

 

We also participated in community cleanup day, where we had 15 boys spend several hours in trash pickup and can recycling.

 

We have a cleanup / beautification project scheduled for this summer to help out our Charter Organization and will plan at least two projects during our Great Day of Planning in July.

 

In case anyone hasnt seen the patch for Good Turn for America go to the site mentioned in Laurie's post.

 

 

 

[Eamonn]

Hate to admit it but I seen this Good Turn for America, thought wow!! Thats nice and really didn't get into it.

In the District, we have several units that are busy doing stuff. It seems to be working well. There have been a few problems with them trying to register on the site. I think it has something to do with them needing a four digit number and all our units only having three.

Our Scout Exec. Is really pushing this. In fact he has it as a Ticket item for his Wood Badge. He has had Billboards put up all over the Council and is really going to town. Could be that his Ticket Counselor is a very tough nut, with an English accent??

One thing that I only found out a few weeks ago is that this Good Turn,runs to 2010 and there will be segments that go around the patch.

The Good Turn is also available to non Scouting groups. In the county that I live, working with the local District Magistrates. I have been working on a program that offers young offenders an alternative to paying fines and going into the "System" or going to a Juvenile Detention Center. Some things are easy to accomplish, such as the Judge will set a curfew and needs someone to just phone these kids at curfew time to make sure they are home. Or if a child is caught smoking under age, rather then just slapping them with a fine we have them write an essay on the dangers of smoking and once it's done we have an adult go over it with them or help them find places where they can get information. We are looking at using the Good Turn as a community service project. Not only for the work that gets done but also the supervision that willing adults could offer making sure that the service is done. Something that the county can't offer because it doesn't have the staff and due to the expense.

My hope is that we might be able to get some of these young people to join a venture crew. But that is a little way off.

Eamonn

[John-in-KC]

Our Council had been doing a Council-wide Good Turn day for some years.

 

For many years, the standard Good Turn was Scouting for Food. As a Council, we literally collected tons of goods for the pantries in our metro area. We abandoned the practice about three years ago ... gave units the option of "Do a unit Good Turn, any Good Turn..."

 

This year, Council went back to Scouting for Food, but did it a bit on the cheap: Door hangar cards instead of shopping bags we could drop off. The neighborhoods we canvassed three years ago gave, when weighed out, about 1 ton (gross weight) of food. This season, we got about 400 pounds.

 

Suggestions:

 

1) With Scouters in visible support of Scouts (YP in practice at strange residences), don't just do door hangars, do a neighborhood canvass and knock on doors, door to door.

 

2) Use bags, not pieces of paper, as the door hangars.

 

Done right, this is a great program opportunity for Second Class, Star, and Life service hours

 

My two cents. Others may have different pennies.(This message has been edited by John-in-KC)

[Eamonn]

We as a Council do Scouting For Food. Shop And Save, a local supermarket chain supplies the bags with printed information on the bag. Units have a designated area and pass out the bags and then we have one day when the food is collected and given to local food banks.

For the Good Turn For America, the Scout Exec. has contacted Habitat, the Salvation Army and other local organizations that the Scouts can team up with.

Eamonn

[BadenP]

My Venture Crew put together care packages, and did a book drive for our troops in Iraq. Weput together 500 care packages and collected over 500 books that were delivered to a local Army reserve base who flew them out the next day. The crew received a commendation from the base CO, and the local council called me to put the crew in for this award after reading about the project in a tiny local paper. The teens were overwhelmed by the response, they felt proud to do their bit for the troops.