Posted on Aug 17, 2017

Our own Jacob Maxson brought members up to speed on the inner workings of the Boy Scouts in Hillsdale and Lenawee counties. He began by citing a number of interesting stats: Between the two counties there are 491 registered scouts of which 244 are cub scouts, 191 are boy scouts and the remaining 56 are Venture scouts. There are 28 different scouting units across the two counties.

 

He shared several stories with us as well. One was about a youngster whose name is Grant Lewis who was 11 years old when he started in scouts. He had Asperger’s Disease and was very shy and found it difficult to communicate with others. He is now 19 and will receive his Eagle Scout Award in a month. He also has a full time job. Scouting, you might say, changed his life!

 

Jacob told the audience that he was proud to announce that a Venture Scouting group was up and running at the Hope Center here in Adrian. It has 53 members so far and involve kids of all ages.

 

The final story Jacob shared dated back to when he was the village director in Kalamazoo and in charge of a 3-day event with scouts from Pack 337 from Marshall. There were 20 people in all – 10 kids and 10 adults. Unfortunately, it rained at the location all three days. In the meantime, 6 kids along with 6 adults left without staying the entire time. However, on the last day as one of the first graders was leaving, he was crying, Jacob said, not because it had rained the entire time but because he was leaving and didn’t want the event to come to an end! Jacob said he broke down when the youngster left reflecting on the impact scouting does, indeed, have on people’s lives!

 

Jacob concluded his presentation by mentioning their fundraising effort. The council, he said, pays approximately $207 per scout to complete a year in the program. Donations, therefore, were very important to being able to continue to offer a program of this nature. He thanked those who had already supported his cause and encouraged others to do the same. He mentioned that he did have a formal request into our club for support. Thanks Jacob for a great presentation. Great to have you a part of our club!