2008 Boy Scout Camp

This past week was Boy Scout Camp at Camp Saffran in Whiteford, MD. Jamal, Darius, Francis and Aaron attended the week's festivities while Maurice came up on Friday with Corey Astill. The boys worked on their Tenderfoot and Second Class ranks as well as Fingerprinting, Home Repairs and Art merit badges. They also enjoyed archery, and rifle and shotgun shooting as well as many hours in the pool.

Our ward's young men combined with the rest of the Suitland Stake to form one "troop" made up of 10 patrols.

Here are a few of the photos from the week. To view the rest please visit our Scout Camp set on Flickr!

Education kits

Our service activity last week was to prepare education kits to send to Afghanistan. We filled 30 school bags with paper, pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, scissors and rulers and then shipped them to Christine Boyer, a sister in our ward who is serving in the military in Afghanistan. Christine will be able to distribute them to Afghani children who visit her medical clinic. We've all been so blessed by others' acts of kindness toward us--it was nice to be able to return the favor.

School supplies galore!

Aaron, Jamal, David, Francis, Darius, Maurice, Suzy and Mike stuffed the bags

Suzy loading the bags into the boxes to take to the post office

Fundraising dinner & talent show

Our scout troop recently hosted a fundraising dinner to raise money for our scout camp in June. After cooking a lot of spaghetti and preparing a lot of salad and other fixings, the young men waited tables and served a three-course meal to the 50-or-so attendees. Thanks to everyone who helped out and donated to our young men! We were able to raise half the money it will take to get the boys to camp this summer!

After dinner, we had a small talent show that included Laura Jean and Darius singing a duet...

Scott and Mike performing a scene for Les Miserables...

Robert playing an organ solo (not sure why I can't make this picture bigger)...

And Darrin performing on his bass...
Thanks again to everyone! Scout camp - here we come!

Self defense

Thanks to our resident "black belt," Nate, for teaching us some great self defense moves!

Touring the capitol

Last week, Scoutmaster Dave took the 11-year-old Scouts on a tour of the U.S. Capitol building and to meet Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC). They had a great afternoon learning about the capitol building, U.S. history, and U.S. government and politics. This is one smart, good-looking crew.
Exploring the rotunda

Hanging out with/on Brother Brigham

Honoring Dr. King

Meeting our Representative

Halloween Party

BoyScout Campout/First Aid merit badge

The brave men! The guys went on a Stake Boy Scout campout and woke up the following morning to earn their first merit badge: first aid. As a sidenote, the guys also had the quickest time to carry a pretend victim on a stretcher 40yds.


A special thanks to the Grover family for donating scout uniforms for all of the guys!