The Value of Scouting

Does Scouting Work?

Working with the Cradle of Liberty Council and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, Dr. Richard M. Lerner and his team at Tufts University surveyed nearly 1,800 Cub Scouts and nearly 400 non-Scouts to better understand youth character development of Scouts. After a two-and-a-half-year period, the study proved Scouting builds positive character and prepares young people for life.

Cub Scouts Teaches Many Valuable Lessons

Our mission is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Scout Law. To achieve our mission, we create innovative youth development programs, and evolve existing ones that respond to the needs of today’s families and deliver them through dedicated volunteers in communities across the nation.

Why Family Scouting?

The Cub Scout mission and values line up with the Santa Sophia PTG very well. After all, the values of Scouting as detailed in the 12 points of the Scout Law – trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent – are relevant and important for both young men and women. Our mission is to prepare the youth with character building, while engaging the whole family unit youth development activities.

Some of these things include:

• Community Service
  
• Hiking / camping adventures
• Group overnight field trips
• Design, build, and race events
• First-aid training
• and much more...

Duty to God

Doing one’s duty to God is central to Scouting. The Scout Oath begins with duty to God; the Scout Law ends with reverence. As Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell said, “There is no religious ‘side’ of the movement. The whole of it is based on religion, that is, on the realization and service of God.” We work with families on reverence building activities for scouts.

As the BSA’s Declaration of Religious Principle states, “Scouting America maintains that no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God and, therefore, recognizes the religious element in the training of the member, but it is absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward that religious training. Its policy is that the home and organization or group with which the member is connected shall give definite attention to religious life.”