Doing a good turn
Service & the city
Early in their scouting, kids learn the value of serving other people. It is the least abstract part of the whole program.
Scouting for Food
Our scouting “good turn,” and the biggest service project of the year. It happens across two Saturdays in November: first the scouts hang collection bags on doors around their own neighborhoods, then the following week they go back, collect what people have left out, and spend the rest of the morning volunteering at the food bank.
Every pack and troop in the council takes part, and it all goes to food pantries across the Bay Area.
Trash the Trash
A morning at Ocean Beach with gloves and bags. Short, tangible, and a good way to end the year — scouts can see exactly what they accomplished, which is not true of every kind of service.
Seeing how the city works
Cub Scouts get behind doors most people never go through. Over the years the pack has toured fire stations, the Taraval police station, the city’s Emergency Operations Center, the Nike missile base in the Marin Headlands, and Fort Point on Living History Day — and the kids get to ask the people who work there anything they like.
A fire truck visits our fall campout at Chabot this year, which is a reliable highlight for the six-year-olds.
Know a place that would host us?
If you work somewhere a group of curious seven-year-olds would find fascinating, we would love to hear about it. Email pack345sf@gmail.com.
Honoring veterans
Pack 345 has a long history of placing flags at the headstones of the San Francisco National Cemetery in the Presidio ahead of Memorial Day, and of marking Veterans Day there. It is quiet work, it takes a couple of hours, and it is the outing families talk about years afterwards.
The Blue & Gold Dinner
Every Cub Scout pack in the country holds a Blue & Gold to mark the anniversary of Scouting. Ours closes the year in May at the Elks Lodge: dinner, jokes, photos, and the last round of awards before summer.
Crossing over
At the end of 5th grade, Arrow of Light scouts cross over into a Scouts BSA troop. We hold a ceremony for it — the end of Cub Scouting and the start of something considerably more independent.