Jack McRae, a Arcadia Rotarian also provides leadership to the Boy Scouts of America organization in several ways. He sits on the Board of Directors for the Greater Los Angeles Area Council and is the District Chairman for the Lucky Baldwin District.

Jack led us in a jet tour of the “State of Scouting”, reminding us that over 3.5 million youth and adult volunteers are involved, including notables like famous eagle scouts Sam Walton & Michael Bloomberg.   Jack told stories about individual scouts (like the one that said that a symptom of ingested poisoning is “explosive diarrhea”!).   Scouting got started in England, migrated over to America, and then took off during the Baby Boom.

Jack gave an overview of the organizational structure which is relatively flat and locally controlled. The ratio of paid, professional scouters to volunteers is about 1:700, which shows a strong level of commitment of adult volunteers to youth.  The Greater Los Angeles Area Council has 10 districts, Jack oversees the Lucky Baldwin District which is made up of the nine cities between Arcadia (western most border of the district) and Azusa (eastern most border of the district). He then explained that Cub Scouts are elementary school aged youth organized into Packs; and Boy Scouts are boys ages 11-17.  And he shared a little known fact: the coveted rank to achieve is not “Eagle”; rather, it is the rank of “First Class Scout” because then that young man is a “complete” scout.  The rank of Eagle is to show what a “First Class Scout” is capable of achieving now that he is a complete scout.

Jack shared the mission of scouting: “to prepare youth to make ethical & moral choices … by instilling the values of the Scout Oath and Law”. He emphasized that “scouting works” and cited two university studies (Baylor & Tufts) that had empirically studied and proven that “scouting” breeds better citizens that make better choices throughout their lifetimes.

The reason that “scouting works” is because it gives young boys a chance to lead, to learn, and to make mistakes & learn from those mistakes in a safe environment. The learned leadership of older scouts teaching younger scouts to lead is the greatest asset scouting has. And by putting scouts in a uniform in the great outdoors, all class, education, poverty vs wealth distinctions disappear.  The uniform and the outdoors is the great equalizer that further helps install values and ethics.

During the years of 2008 thru 2015, scouting took some big hits due to sex scandals, the gay rights issue, and the recession. These led to declines in participation and steep cuts to the budgets.  At a cost of $250/year/scout, every dollar cut had a great impact to each scout being served.

Thankfully, Jack gave us some hope. He discussed several initiatives his district is undertaking: to revive scouting units that have died out and to start units in the underserved communities that can benefit the most like Azusa, Baldwin Park, and El Monte.

Lastly, Jack shared how money was being allocated to some of these communities to hire professional scouters that can deliver an excellent scouting program to those underprivileged youth.  Financially, 84% of every dollar raised goes to delivering scouting programs with only 16% going to “overhead”.  He then called upon us to support one scout for a mere 83₵/day ($25/month).  And if we support two scouts for $1.50/day ($45/month), then we get invited to the Appreciate Reception.  This year’s reception includes a visit to a private classic/exotic car collection and micro-brew tasting at a micro-brewery.

Then Frank Hall announced that the Arcadia Rotary Foundation would do a “challenge match” and match each and every one of the Rotarian’s donations up to a maximum of $1,000.

You can support scouting by going to: http://luckybaldwin.org/ and signing up for a recurring monthly donation of $25/month.  Sign ups for $45/month or more will get you an invitation to the Supporter Appreciation Event, including  the visit to the private classic car collection and private taste & tour of a local micro-brewery.  Thank you Jack McCrae for your generous support and contributions to our youth.