Friday, May 20, 2016

Insight - Celebrating Scouting in Freeport - By Michelle Libby



This past weekend, the Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts of Maine teamed up with LL Bean for an all day event called Scout-o-Rama, to demonstrate scouting skills and the scouting spirit. 

The day kicked off with a parade down the main road through Freeport and ending at Discovery Park, where at least 1,000 Scouts cheered and celebrated the event. Some adults were presented with Powerhorn medallions for finishing a 6-month long training that LL Bean sponsored and taught for the most part. (I was one of those recipients.) 

Stations were set up all over LL Bean, inside and outside as well as at the Morse Street School, a block away from the main campus. The Scouts were encouraged to visit every table with the use of a passport that they had to have signed at each station. The stations varied from one with information on ticks to rocket launches, summer camp programs to creating a personal survival or first aid kit. (That was my favorite station.) 

Scouts used the downtown area of Freeport for a scavenger hunt featuring selfies at certain locations.
No matter where people went on Saturday, they saw men, women and children in Scout uniforms ready to lend a helping hand or portage a canoe or climb an EVO Rock Gym provided rock wall. There were cooking demonstrations, tent displays and so much more. 

The Freeport Flag Ladies were in attendance in their flag shirts, thanking Scouting adults for raising the next generation of leaders. 

Scouting is a program that has done amazing things for my family, from my and my daughter’s years in Girl and Boy Scouting to my husband and son’s years in Boy Scouting (both of them are Eagle Scouts), we as a family have grown stronger and have had many adventures with Scouting. 

If this past weekend wasn’t convenient for your family, the annual event will take place at LL Bean next May and will be bigger and filled with more Scouting. For more information about how to get involved with Scouting, visit www.pinetreebsa.org or www.girlscoutsofmaine.org.



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