Background
We collaborated with over 210 community-based organizations to charter 329 Scouting units in 37 communities and serve 10,709 youth with high quality programs. Adult volunteers collectively spent over 210,000 hours leading, mentoring, training and guiding our Scouts.
Cub Scouts
The best way to find out what you do best is to try it. Swing a bat. Pitch a tent. Build a Pinewood Derby Car. Cub Scouts are at that magical age where everything is new and possible and most importantly, fun. They live in a world of “firsts” — first home run, first campfire, first checkered flag — where their game plan is their imagination. Their most valuable reward, the friends they make for life and a parent’s proud smile. These are invaluable experiences that can be had in Scouting. These are life lessons that transform today’s Cub Scouts into tomorrow’s Boy Scouts. 5,323 boys participated with their parents in Cub Scout Packs last year.
Boy Scouts
Most boys avoid obstacles. Boy Scouts seek them. They live for any opportunity to display their abilities while learning new skills. Camping is fun; but surviving a downpour in the middle of the night, that’s an adventure! Cooking over a campfire is fun; learning which wild berries are edible is survival. Spending a weekend in the woods is fun; breaking camp without leaving a trace is admirable. These are invaluable experiences that can be had in Scouting. These are life lessons that transform today’s Boy Scouts into tomorrow’s leaders. 4,121 Boy Scouts participated in Troops and Teams last year.
Venturing
What did you do this weekend? For Venturers, it may be rappelling a cliff, shooting the rapids, leading their peers, or serving others. Working as a team, Venturing Crews and Sea Scout Ships welcome the opportunity to pass these trials. Venturing provides exciting activities that help co-ed teens pursue their special interests and hobbies while growing and developing leadership skills. 1,476 youth participated in Crews and Sea Scout Ships last year.
Exploring
Exploring is a unique career exploration program for teenage young men and women providing an introduction to a variety of careers and opportunities to learn life skills, behaviors and values necessary to choose a career, prepare for it, and excel once on the job. 530 young adults participated in Explorer programs last year.
Volunteers
Volunteers join Scouting to make a positive difference in the lives of young people. Through the dedication of these many volunteers, we remain the foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training in America. Nearly 4,459 trained adults gave leadership and mentoring to all our programs.
Impact
Scouting is changing the lives of young people in throughout New Haven and Fairfield county through our transformational program that positively impact society as a whole. Deep within the ethos that Scouting instills is a need to wake up in the morning seeking your share of the work to be done.
Through partnerships with over 300 community-based organizations including churches, PTO's, veteran's organizations and civic clubs; and with the support and guidance of over 4,200 trained volunteer adult leaders, Scouting prepares young people for life. For more than 100 years we have sought to instill timeless values of character, servant leadership and selfless service in young people. While our values have remained consistent, the methods have changed to meet the times, and today, Scouting has adapted many of its programs to focus on STEM-based initiatives, giving young people job skills they will need, and that they may not be receiving in public education. Programs like the Pinewood Derby and building a rope bridge are more than just fun activities. They force the Scouts to learn basic or advanced engineering skills, help them develop good preparation and planning, and give them valuable time with positive adult mentors.
As boys advance through Scouting, they are given more and more independent leadership opportunities as the adults transition into a coaching role. Scouting teaches boys modern leadership theory and gives them a place to practice and a safe place to make mistakes.
We know from studies that Scouting has done nationally and locally the positive, life-long difference that just one year in our program can make on the life of a young man or woman. A recent study of Eagle Scouts conducted by Baylor University found that Eagle Scouts are more likely to engage in behaviors that are designed to enhance and protect the environment; that Eagle Scouts are more likely to be committed to setting and achieving personal, professional, financial and spiritual goals; that Eagle Scouts show higher levels of planning and preparedness than do other Scouts and non-Scouts; and that Eagle Scouts exhibit an increased tendency to participate in a variety of health and recreational activities.
Deep within the ethos that Scouting instills is a need to wake up in the morning seeking your share of the work to be done.
As boys advance through Scouting, they are given more and more independent leadership opportunities as the adults transition into a coaching role. Scouting teaches boys modern leadership theory and gives them a place to practice and a safe place to make mistakes.
We know from studies that Scouting has done nationally and locally the positive, life-long difference that just one year in our program can make on the life of a young man or woman. A recent study of Eagle Scouts conducted by Baylor University found that Eagle Scouts are more likely to engage in behaviors that are designed to enhance and protect the environment; that Eagle Scouts are more likely to be committed to setting and achieving personal, professional, financial and spiritual goals; that Eagle Scouts show higher levels of planning and preparedness than do other Scouts and non-Scouts; and that Eagle Scouts exhibit an increased tendency to participate in a variety of health and recreational activities.
Needs
As we strive to become the agency of choice for families in New Haven and Fairfield counties, we need to recruit Board members reflective of the diversity of our communities, and specifically board leadership from New Haven county.
We are also seeking to partner with community organizations who share Scouting's mission of providing young people with high quality, life-changing programs. Visit www.ctyankee.org for a list of needs for our camps or to contact the council about volunteering for any of our programs.
Board Chair Statement
It’s a great day for Scouting!
Thank you for your support of Scouting in the Connecticut Yankee Council. It takes time, talent and treasures from thousands of volunteers and supporters like you to deliver high-quality Scouting programs to nearly 11,000 young people each year and grow in our membership, service and program opportunities.
Your support brought together the largest gathering of Scouts in Connecticut at ConnJam 2015, a weekend full of activities and programs that excited young people of all ages, along with nearly 100 other district activities, trainings and opportunities. Our summer camp programs continue to light the spirit within the heart of a Scout and they’re made possible thanks to you.
Your support helped us continue our outreach into our most underserved communities through the establishment of a STEM Day Camp in South Norwalk, a Hispanic-oriented Cub Scout Pack in Stamford and additional units in New Haven. We also proudly welcomed
the first Eagle Scout from the City of New Haven in over a dozen years!
Your support helped us ensure that every boy who joined Scouting has a safe, high-quality program that delivers the promise of our mission.
On behalf of our Executive Board and the entire Scouting family, we thank you for your support of Scouting. Your involvement prepares young people for ife and in turn provides our communities with future leaders founded on timeless values and principles. You are critical to our
success.