This week I had the pleasure to attend a meeting at the Esperanza Community Center, where Scout Master’s Bill Mills-Curran, John Fortini and Assistant Scout Master Yvette Lavin (who is a part time resident of Puerto Peñasco, along with 12 members of the Knox Trail Council from Marlbough, Massachusetts. They came to Puerto Peñasco to start recruiting and training new scouts and scout masters as well as get committees formed. Between these 3 they have nearly 90 years in scouting. Each of the scouts who were here had to raise $1000.00 to come here as well as give up their last week of vacation before school started.
It was Yvette’s interest in bringing scouting here that this all came about. She enlisted the help of Barb and Mark Olszewski who are known in Puerto Peñasco for getting involved in the community. Yvette was in charge of arranging for the trip and housing and John, who has made several trips all over the world with scouts, was in charge of the scouts and travel.
I did not know that in México City, there are a lot of scout troops, so it would be a natural to form troops here due to the close proximity to the US and to be able to bring things for the boys and girls. The high schools here recruited over 350 students as the scouts from MA made their presentation. The 2 high schools also are now making scouting as part of their after school activities. Among the group was a Life Member as well as an Eagle Scout. When Jose(BooBar) and I arrived, we found them practicing knot tying.
One thing I realized early on in our conversation was that the BSA here is in need of dedicated people to be the chair person or be on committee’s such as fund raising, etc. As this comes together will need both men and women to be Scout Master’s for all of these children. Volunteer’s will be needed for a multitude of areas.
Just to give you a little background of BSA, it was started in England in 1908 and came to the US in 1910. Scouting is for all class of students regardless of how much money their family has or does not have. The AIMS method of scouting is to build character-citizenship-fitness to help mold them as they grow up. These 8 methods are designed to accomplish the aims. They are ideals, patrols, outdoors, advancement, adult association, personal growth, leadership development and lastly uniform. Boy Scouts of America consists of over 2.7 million youth. It is because of the fun they have that brings the interest in scouting to so many boys and girls.
My hope is that many of you reading this may have been a scout when you were young and now that you are retired, you can bring what you learned to help train the youth of Puerto Peñasco. Although you need not be proficient in Spanish, it would be help. They are usually people that are bi-lingual to help you out.
Jose from BooBar has signed on to be a committee member and I will as soon as I can get the forms in English. If you have any questions, you can contact Mark, Barb, Jose or myself and we can get you the forms to fill out and answer any questions that may arise. Yvette will be back in late September or October, so I am hopeful that we can be organized for her and whomever accompanies her here.
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