Quest to Save the Last Boy Scout Troop in Syracuse, NY

[RememberSchiff]

Recently, Syracuse Post-Standard outdoors reporter Steve Featherstone was a big winner at the 2025 Outdoor Writers Association of America Excellence in Craft Contest last month. Among his four awards was 

Third Place in Newspaper, Family Participation/Youth for May, 2024  The quest to save Syracuse’s last Boy Scout troop

Which can be read in full here. 

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/2024/05/the-last-boy-scouts-inside-the-quest-to-save-syracuses-sole-remaining-scout-troop.html

Competition, Lack of Volunteers, COST

[Tron]

8 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Recently, Syracuse Post-Standard outdoors reporter Steve Featherstone was a big winner at the 2025 Outdoor Writers Association of America Excellence in Craft Contest last month. Among his four awards was 

Third Place in Newspaper, Family Participation/Youth for May, 2024  The quest to save Syracuse’s last Boy Scout troop

Which can be read in full here. 

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/outdoors/2024/05/the-last-boy-scouts-inside-the-quest-to-save-syracuses-sole-remaining-scout-troop.html

Competition, Lack of Volunteers, COST

Why is this repeating? This is an old story and not true, this is not the last scout troop in Syracuse, it wasn't true when this got originally posted and it's not true now. WTF is going on here? 

[RememberSchiff]

I only found one other BSA troop in Syracuse, a girls-only BSA troop 150.  At that time in Syracuse, did the author miss another traditional boy scout troop beside Troop 1?

I hope so as only 3 boy scouts in a city of 140,000+ is discouraging. 

[Tron]

There are 4 according to beascout.org, which considering the size and density of Syracuse I will admit is a pathetically small size. Syracuse is weird though as the city is sort of starfish shaped with a lot of urban sister cities (14 total counting those cities) packed in tight to it comparable to how a midwestern city of the same population would just have neighborhoods.  I would be less concerned about the troops and more concerned about the very low number of packs. It takes 2 or more packs to sustain a troop and there are only like 6 packs in the city, about 20 in the metro.  The city itself only has a population of 148k which for being the hub of a 600k metro is tiny; the "suburbs" significantly out number the "big city" compared to other metros. It's not the last troop, there are at least 3 more according to beascout.org the city isn't as big as it seems. The fact that the city has only 6 packs is the real problem, I would say that at least 2 of those 4 troops are going to fold within a year or two because there are not enough packs to sustain the troops. This "last troop in Syracuse" might become true within the decade.