The next time you are at church, or chatting with friends, or right now at work, ask a few people individually what they think of when you say "Boy Scouts". Then ask them how have they interacted with scouts - that is, when have they ever talked to, worked with, or engaged a scout?

Go ahead, ask someone a few cubicles over if you're at work. Then, post your results here if you have a minute to share.

I did this and the majority of average joes (from my highly scientific study) just interact with scouts when they come around selling something. When you say "Boy Scouts", they think of helping others, good deeds, camping, and all that - but they don't see it in action. What they really see is our fundraising efforts. :-(

Tomorrow, our troop has a couple dozen guys cleaning up the outdoors area of the church. We'll work with other folks in the congregation so that will be good. But we really need to toot our horn more - not for the recognition, but so the community knows we're out here doing good things. AND, we need to do more good things, more often.

We've got a few community service works we do each year: clean the veteran's cemetary, visit with a senior citizens' home, and clean the church. We also do other service as opportunities arise, as well as a handful of eagle projects each year.

Our troop will be lowering the flag at Mt. Rushmore on July 31 this summer. That will be a little bit of exposure, I guess. :-) If you happen to be there, say 'howdy'.

One way our troop tries to promote scouting to the community is to have the Troop Historian submit at least two articles to the local newspapers each 6 months. Including pictures really helps, too.

Do you have any suggestions/ideas/tricks to get scouting recognized in your community?

Scout On
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