Pasadena Boy Scout Troops Strive to Remain Cohesive Amid Pandemic

Looking back on an unprecedented 10 months without any campouts, cookouts or expeditions, Boy Scouts in Pasadena, including girls, are continuing to adapt to keep their troops unified amid the pandemic.

Having survived the 1918 flu pandemic and two world wars since its inception in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America is looking forward to marking its 111th anniversary on Monday.

Scoutmaster Scott Jennings of Troop 4 in Pasadena said he’s proud of the way his scouts have dealt with the pandemic.

“For me, it’s about the scouting principles of being prepared and being able to adapt. I’m really impressed at how the boys are adapting to our online situation,” he said.

“We’ve had a number of boys make Eagle Scout, and they’ve done their Eagle projects using COVID guidelines to keep everybody safe and separated,” Jennings said. “We’ve had five scouts recently make Eagle Scout,  — six for the total of 2020 — which is a pretty good number, especially considering the difficulty of dealing with everybody being stuck at home.”

For the most part, the troop is autonomous, he explained. 

“I try and stay back as an adviser so that I’m just helping make arrangements and getting things organized for them, and then sort of teaching them the leadership skills that they can continue on their own,” Jennings said.

A number of scouts have dropped out of the troop during the pandemic, Jenning said.

“I’ve told them all when we resume in-person meetings, we’ll give them a call and see if they want to come back,” he said. “A lot of the kids are burnt out doing online school already all day, and then to have another online meeting in the evening, it’s just more than they want to deal with. I can understand. I’ve done my fair share of Zoom meetings and stuff, and, it does make you a little anxious after a while.”

While the BSA began accepting girls as members two years ago, not enough have expressed interest to form a girls’ troop within Troop 4, Jennings said.

“We’ve had a couple of girls come and show interest, but we haven’t made the threshold of five girls that come regularly to meetings,” he said. “So that’s one of those bridges we’ll cross, but I think diversity and inclusion is going to be a really good thing.”

Neighboring Troop 21 in Pasadena has a girl’s troop in the form of Troop 21-G, Scoutmaster Marcus Errico said.

“We really like to think that we serve the needs of all scouts,” he said. “And we think our troop does a really good job of reflecting the communities of Pasadena.” 

When the pandemic first forced the suspension of in-person meetings, Troop 21 took a few weeks off, but then got right back into scouting, primarily through online means, he recalled.

“We decided that we wanted to make sure that we still offered a way for the boys and girls to come together and have something to do in the evenings, to be able to see each other and interact with each other,” according to Errico. “And so we’ve been doing Zoom  meetings almost every Monday night since April.”

Out of about 70 total troop members, 40 to 50 generally take part in the online meetings each week, Errico said.

While online activities can’t replace the great outdoors, the scouts have found lots of ways to keep the meetings interesting, Errico said.

“We’ve done everything. We’ve done virtual escape rooms. We’ve done scout Jeopardy based on scouting activities. We’ve done some merit badge nights, where we work on certain merit badges,” he said.

“We’ve done some virtual camping nights where, since we can’t go out and go camping in any of the local mountains right now, you can camp in your backyard and we’ll have sort of a virtual campfire experience,” Errico added. “We’ll tell stories, we’ll gather around the fire and then everyone can go sleep in a hammock in their backyard or on a pillow fort in their living room.”

Above all, “We’re trying to keep the troop together. We’re trying to provide a source of fun and entertainment to the scouts, a sense of community,” he said.

“It’s been really tough on the kids. They haven’t been able to go to school and be able to see each other in person,” he continued. “So it’s a really good way for them to come together, see each other, interact and have a good outlet because they really need it.”

More information on BSA Troop 4 is available online at troop4.net. More details on Troop 21 can be found at troop21pasadena.org.