Sponsored content: Boy Scouts of America helping young people develop important life skills | ciLivi

Scouting America is not just camping and merit badges, but about building character, leadership, and lifelong skills. Here now sponsoring our segment today from the Prairie Lands Council, we have Jared White, Scout Executive and CEO, as well as a Scout, Molly White. Welcome to both of you. Thanks so much for having us here today. Okay, let's talk about the mission of the Boy Scouts of America. Yes, ma'am. So the mission of the Boy Scouts is to provide Scouts with moral and ethical choices to make good choices in their life. If I paraphrase there, sorry, caught me off guard. No, you're fine. And obviously it's not strictly for boys anymore. No, it's not. This is an all-inclusive organization. Most definitely, it's for all youth, yes. Fortunately, in 2017, we allowed females into our Cub Scout program. And then on February 1st, 2019, we allowed females into our Scouts BSA program, which is our former Boy Scout program. And we have a really great group of Scouts here locally. We actually lead the nation in the number of girls per our population that we have here, just locally. Wow, I was gonna ask what the response is, but it sounds like it's been very positive, very good. You actually cover nine counties here across Central Illinois and into Indiana. We do, yeah. We go as far south as Douglas County, as far north as Iroquois, west of Pyatt, then we have a fountain in Vermilion counties in Indiana. So, yeah. Okay, well, there are so many benefits of being a Scout. Molly, what do you enjoy about being in the Boy Scouts of America? Camping. What happens at camp when you go camping? Well, if we're camping in the same campsite, there's this bridge and there's like a ravine under it. And we always, and all the Scouts always go down into the ravine and then we start making like steps. And like the steps are footholds, actually. Yeah. So we don't slip. And then we make like a fort down there. Oh, that sounds like the perfect group for those who love being outdoors and like being adventurous. You've got some pretty cool little badges there. Which ones maybe are you most proud of? I don't know. All of them? Well, I will say I have been seeing popcorn booths popping up around Central Illinois at grocery stores and the such. You've actually got a little tub there. So is this something that you guys do this time of year? Yeah, our popcorn season kind of runs from the end, well, September 1st to like the end of October. And so the difference with popcorn that we do here locally is that when you support, when you buy popcorn, 70% comes back to local scouting. We split it half and half with our scout units and with our local council. So 70% does stay local here. The other 30% goes to the company to pay for the popcorn. Well, and Molly mentioned camping being one of her favorite activities. What are some of the other things that you guys do in the Boy Scouts? So we're very fortunate here to have a lot of great opportunities for our Scouts to be able to do really fun things because of the University of Illinois. So we have STEM labs that we're able to do, a science, technology, engineering, and math. We actually have a STEM trailer that's provided by the Rotary Club of Champaign and it has 3D printers, it has 3D pens, things like that for our Scouts to be able to do, not just the camping, but out at our camp, we have other things like metalworking. We built a metalworking shop out there. So this summer for the first time, we offered that metalworking shop. Blacksmithing. Blacksmithing, yeah, blacksmithing is what Molly said, yes. Okay, let's talk affordability though, because I think some people are concerned like, well, maybe I don't have time to add another activity onto our kids' schedule. Maybe it's not in the budget. Is this an affordable club to be a part of? It most definitely is. So scouting only costs $85 a year to be a member of the scouting organization. And then you can help pay for your scouting by selling popcorn. I know that when I was a Scout, came from a low-income family, I sold popcorn at that time was $100 to go to Scout camp. So I had to sell $300 worth of popcorn. So if I sold $300 worth of popcorn, that paid for my summer camp. We have a Scout here locally up in Gibson City that sells almost $40,000 worth of popcorn a year. Oh my gosh. One Scout sells $40,000 worth of popcorn. That's a lot of popcorn. It is a lot of popcorn. Oh my goodness. It is a lot of popcorn. But think of all the work that he is now. The salesmanship skills, right? Yeah. The salesmanship skills. Molly's got that, right? Going door-to-door in her neighborhood and be able to talk. She goes with a family member, so she's safe. And we make sure that, you know, she's talking to them, you know, she's getting those salesmanship skills and be able to communicate with those folks as well. Okay, if someone is interested and they're like, okay, I want to get in on the Boy Scouts. How do they do that? So they can go to our website, prairielandsbsa.org. And right there in the front page is the things that's Join Scouting Now. And it'll pull up all the local units that are close to you. Like Champaign here, we have for Molly's age, which is anywhere from kindergarten to fifth grade, there's about six units just here in Champaign that you can be able to join. And Urbana, there's another one or two, right? So we have scouting units all around for people to be able to be a part of it. And then if you've got those youth that are that middle school to high school age, like I have a middle schooler and a high schooler, they can get signed up as well. And there's plenty of units for them to get signed up for. So it sounds like it's fun for kids of all ages. It is, it is. It really is. All right. Well, you enjoy the rest of your popcorn. Good luck with the popcorn sales and have fun camping. I like popcorn. There you go. And we appreciate you being here today. Hey, thanks so much, Heather. Appreciate it. You're welcome. If you want to learn more about Scouting America, who we appreciate sponsoring our segment today, we'll connect you with them over at our website, CILiving.tv.