December Service Project

[sctmom 11]

We did this last year and was such a hit that we are doing it the same way this year.

 

We are visiting a nursing home and singing carols. We also wanted to take some craft items to them that the boys made. We had to all pickup our popcorn on a Saturday morning so as some parents sorted popcorn, the others helped the kids with the craft project. Spent about an hour doing the crafts. Had a great time. On the way out, picked up the popcorn and was on the way.

 

Last year we decorated coffee cans and filled them with goodies like combs, nail files, cloth hankerchiefs, notepads, hand lotion, etc.

 

This year we are making popsicle stick picture frames. We will take a Polarid camera with us and take pictures of the residents with a few of the scouts and put it on their picture frame. We will also have the boy color some pages and make some cards to give to the people.

Again we are making the crafts on popcorn pickup day and do the nursing home visit a week or so later.

 

 

 

[NativeTexan 10]

Great ideas!

 

This year our pack is making hand-made Christmas Cards for local nursing homes and pediatric wards at local hospitals. The cards I have seen look wonderful! I am very proud of our boys.

[LauraT7 13]

our troop helps each year the weekend after thanksgiving with cleaning and decorating, inside and out, the church that is our charter organization. the church also owns a couple of houses on the grounds that are rented, usually to elderly members - the boys do outdoor work and put up outdoor deocorations for them, too.

[scomman 10]

We have several cub packs help us with our bellringing during the Christmas season. THe kids enjoy it and it shows the community that Scouts are helping to make it better. Best of all the kids tell thier friends before their time and they stop by and the scouts use it as a recruiting tool.

[Twocubdad 665]

This week all the dens in our pack are assembling gift boxes to send to soldiers stationed overseas. Before 9/11 this was a routine program and you could send boxes addressed to "Any Soldier or Sailor" at a given APO address. That program was cancelled last year due to security concerns. We contacted a local reserve unit and made arrangements with the unit Chaplain to send boxes to his people overseas. You may be pushing the envelope to get that set up in time for Christmas.

[Pack38Scouter 11]

Every year for the last four years and will be a tradition, our Pack collect toys (100+ toys) and gifts for the local Woman's Center. We have a large Pack so the boys in each Den brought toys that is age appropriate according to his Den number (Den 1 = 1 year-old, Den 11 = 2 year-old, Den 15 = 6 year-old, etc.). The parents and leaders can bring a gift for a woman. We found out that the Woman's Center is the one of the last places that anyone would think about in terms of gift donations for the Seasons.

 

This year, we also had a small food drive to stock up the local Food Pantry before the Thanksgiving break. These local Food Pantry gets little of the food distribution from the large collection location from Houston.

 

During the xmas weeks, one or two of our Dens go around the nursing homes and do caroling.

[sctmom 11]

Our local food pantry also asks for grocery bags. I would have never thought about it, but they run out of bags to give the food in. We collected canned goods and plastic bags at our November pack meeting. I'm thinking we should start doing this every pack meeting. All I asked was one can and as many bags as you could afford. You never know who in your pack may be receiving from these places and can't afford to give a lot. The grocery bags don't cost the families any money.

 

[mschwartz 10]

We do a few different things in the fall - we clean up the leaves at the church where the Pack meetings are held (they're the sponsoring organization) - this can happen anywhere from October to December, depending on the weather and the trees.

 

We also do a Toys for Tots collection at our holiday party in December, as well as going to area nursing homes to sing carols.

 

Our food pantry drive is usually at the November meeting.