Skilled Trades Center added to Boxwell Scout Reservation (TN), Camp Friedlander (OH)

[skeptic]

On 10/20/2021 at 4:35 AM, RememberSchiff said:

..."The Roy Grindstaff Skilled Trades Center will provide scouts ages 13-18 the opportunity to earn the merit badges of automotive maintenance, electricity, home repair, painting, plumbing and welding. The facility will also include a classroom to accommodate hands-on skills presentations by volunteers who are experts in the trades’ fields."

The center to be located at Boxwell Scout Reservation is scheduled to open next summer and  was "made possible through a gift from the Maddox Foundation of Hernando, Miss. The Skilled Trades Center is a priority project of the Middle Tennessee Council’s Campaign for Boxwell Reservation. The $10.6 million effort (for renovating the whole camp - RS) is underway and just less than $7 million has been raised."

More at source:

https://www.wilsonpost.com/news/boxwell-reservation-to-break-ground-on-skilled-trades-center-for-boy-scouts/article_3315ac62-2d79-11ec-9512-1b8c46e5f7ea.html

 

Why not use the classrooms, shops, and equipment at local schools? A Scout is Thrifty.

This is wonderful and terrible sad as well for us in VCC.  Our council "leadership?" chose to sell our camp rather than find a way to reinvent it.  And we were well on the way to what this is.  We had aa welding program that was always full an waiting for room, for at least five years.  We had just arranged to do automotive repair at the camp, as well as some of the other badges noted, though they were still in the planning modes.  Then, due to the infrastructure issues, and a seriously flawed decision pushed by our (now forced into retirement) SE, they closed the camp and put it up for sale.  OUr local communities had twice stepped up to make scouting happen at our first camp, and then 3F, which is lost now.  The first camp went with a highway put through it, but remnanst are now a FS camp.  Yes, costly repairs needed at 3F, but instead of moving with the newer concepts being suggested, they just threw the towel in.  And now we have NO viable camp, though still property that could be used, but that is wilderness for the most part, though easily accessible.  It too is on the market, but it has a lot of donation issues.  Anyhow, I am glad to see this, and I do hope Mike may be involved, though my few attempts to contact him were blocked by his handlers, or he just is no longer supportive, which I hope is not the case.  As partnering with his already established programs is a win/win.