Those Uniform Pants Again
Bruce Harper (bharper@VT.EDU)
Tue, 31 Aug 1999 09:25:35 -0400
As I was getting boys headed out the door to school this morning, I was
watching "CBS This Morning" and caught an interesting segment. Fred
Grandy ("Gopher" from "The Love Boat" TV show), CEO of Goodwill Industries,
was being interviewed about changes that Goodwill has gone though to
serve the public and those it helps. In addition to an on-line auction
web site, he was promoting a line of denim jeans being manufactured
by Goodwill Industries of South Florida.
Goodwill Industries trains and employs people with disabilities and
special needs. An outgrowth of training sewing machine operators is
the production of G.I. Pride jeans, which are for sale for $17.76.
See http://gipride.com/ for information about ordering. These jeans
are American-made and their sale helps sustain a program that helps
those who need a little extra assistance. The manufacture of jeans is
an outgrowth of the production of battle dress trousers for the
military, other uniform items, and American and Florida state flags.
How does this apply to the Boy Scouts? If a program this good at helping
people can sell a pair of well-made jeans for under $20, then why can't
Scout uniform pants be done the same way? It would seem that if someone
at National were on the ball, an easy win-win-win situation could be
created all the way around. The Boy Scouts could contract with Goodwill
to produce uniform pants and shorts, helping the employees of Goodwill.
Those who are purchasing these uniform pants and shorts, in addition to
helping Goodwill, could probably get these items at a better price than
people are looking at now. With the experience Goodwill has at producing
BDU trousers for the military, a comparable pair of Scout BDU-like trousers
(with real, _useable_ cargo pockets) could probably be produced for those
who want such an item. The uniforms would be American-made and would
support a program that helps others.
I know this has been hashed out at great length here before, with lots
of comments, the occasional letter from some muckety-muck up in the ranks
of National about why things are the way they are with uniforms, and no
solution in sight. But this seems like a worthwhile undertaking for
the Boy Scouts, especially since Goodwill Industries is in the business
to help others. I'm not sure how to proceed from here, but those who
seem to have the ear of folks at National might pass on the word about
this.
Bruce in Blacksburg
Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 56, Blacksburg, Virginia
New River District -- Blue Ridge Mountains Council
Bruce B. Harper (540)231-4360 bharper@vt.edu
Distributed Information Systems -- The Virginia Tech Web Group
840 Pointe West Commons, Suite 6 Blacksburg, Virginia 26060
Virginia Tech home page http://www.vt.edu/
