Eagle Scout Service Project for a Sea Scout

[Bill Pitcher]

BTW, has anyone had a Sea Scout who had to do a service project? They MUST use the ESSP Workbook, too. I had one, a young lady, who built a long section of dock for our local Hudson River Maritime Museum. Talk about ORGANIZED and a leader. Once built, it had to float and travel across the river from her construction site to it's final resting place. She did it as a 17 yr. old, too. She even earned her piolit's liscence for mid-sized water craft (?) as a Sea Scout and ran the tour boat out to our lighthouse one summer. I've heard that she is the only young lady to earn the Quartermaster award from the NE Region also!!

[smtroop168]

Only seen 2 others...Ark building and Sea parting.

Good for her!

I wish the EP required some more rigor than it does sometimes. The Great Grandson of Arthur Eldred (1st Eagle for those who didn't know) was in Scouting Magazine for getting his Eagle medal at 18 of course and his project was a Blood Drive.

[kwildman]

I think a lot of the variance is up to the interpretation of the council/district. I see some areas that have a lot of food drives or blood drives as ESPs. I believe there is a section that refers to "lasting benefit to the community".

[Fred Johnson]

I thought "lasting value" was a requirement too, but I can't find it. Here is the ACPP: http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/33088.pdf Here is the only applicable quote I found. It makes me thing food drives is a gray area that could be interpreted in the favor of the scout.

Routine labor, a job or service normally rendered, should not be considered.

Blood drives was mentioned earlier also. I though blood drives were excluded because scout's don't have a chance to show leadership at a blood drive. They would be able to promote the event, but setup, processing paperwork, drawing blood and handling the materials is a controlled, standardized process done by the Red Cross or other group that actually runs the events. As such, the scout's would have little leadership at the event.

[smtroop168]

Our council does not allow blood drives. We're also not high on "collection projects" Food is a definite no since it competes with the Scouting For Food event. Unless the scout can show more than just collecting items and giving them to a group, its a no go. This type of EP IMHO borders on a fund raiser for the group...its just not cash.

[Quailman]

My first experience with EPs was about 20 years ago, while sitting in the lobby of a blood collection center, filling out the paperwork. A woman said. "If you don't already have a group number that you're contributing for, please use number '12345' because the son of a coworker of mine needs to get X number of donations for his eagle project." I absently filled it in, but then another donor spoke up. "I am a scout leader, and that is not how eagle projects work. If you are not here because the scout himself convinced you to come here today, please do not write that number down." I crossed it out.

[Bill Pitcher]

Our council also does NOT allow blood drives for EP's for the same reasons as mentioned above . . . "the Red Cross does everything." However, I have had two food/item drives for the local floundering SPCA!! One boy collected over 3,000 cans and bags of cat and dog food (plus a little cash that he purchased more food with) and the other boy collected blankets and towels that the animals use to sleep on (filled 5 PU's with items that were sorted, cleaned and packaged). Both took multiple weekends.
Our council "Scouting for Food Drive" is held in November so they ran their projects in the Spring (different times . . . a year apart). The SPCA needed it, the Scouts wanted to help the animals, and both projects helped the SPCA recover and keep going. So, why not? I would encourage ANY Scout that wanted to help the animals like this.

[RWSmith]

Just a thought (albeit, a bit off topic)... wondering how a one-day Blood Drive might work as a Star/Life service project?

( I may split this "blood drive" thing off to a separate thread if it continues to grow... which is no problem. )

[smtroop168]

Just a thought (albeit, a bit off topic)... wondering how a one-day Blood Drive might work as a Star/Life service project?

Yes because the requirement is different. S/L say take part in service projects totaling 4/6 hours. No planning on the scout's part is required.
Our Council does assist in blood drives as part of Good Turn for America.

[RWSmith]

Just a thought (albeit, a bit off topic)... wondering how a one-day Blood Drive might work as a Star/Life service project?

Yes because the requirement is different. S/L say take part in service projects totaling 4/6 hours. No planning on the scout's part is required.
Our Council does assist in blood drives as part of Good Turn for America.

Yeah, I know. I was just stating the obvious in the form of a rhetorical question. (No sarcasm was intended though.) I mean, we really should be sponsoring blood drives. But, as has been duly noted, a "typical" blood drive wouldn't come anywhere close to meeting the requirements for an ESLSP. So, I was just thinking out loud that a Star/Life/Unit SP might best fit the bill for a blood drive.