Gamehaven Council
The personal growth of Benjamin and the success of his accomplishments are not the result of having earned an Eagle Badge. Rather, the badge is an accumulation of life experience with influence from family, parents, friends, educators, clergy, scout leaders, coaches, employers, and many others. Scouting provides a way to sample life’s challenges, successes and disappointments while weighing those experiences against the backdrop of scouting’s core values, the Scout Law.
His parents watched as Ben, like most scouts met the challenge, although sometimes reluctantly, to take the next step in advancement. Every step required a little more effort and as the challenges grew larger they had a little more uncertainty of success. Thanks to the repeated experience of being challenged by the Boy Scout program at each step of his development Benjamin has reached great success in fashioning his own character and value system.
As a Cub Scout, Ben would go on occasional day hikes. As a Tenderfoot Scout he learned to spend nights away from home. As a 15 year old Life Scout he participated in a 5 day canoeing adventure covering nearly 125 miles, and hundreds of miles from home with only the gear and food they had trained to plan for and steward. As a Cub Scout, Dad and Mom paid his dues to support his membership in the Pack. As a Second Class Scout he was accountable to help the Patrol plan the meals, collect the money, purchase the food and prepare it when they went on a trip. As an Eagle Candidates he needed to conceive a community service project, solicit the funds and resources, organize the volunteers and be held to a Board of Review for his efforts.
Ben’s success in Scouting is Scouting’s success in Ben. In other words the program over years incrementally challenged our son to be a better man, a better student, a better citizen and a better friend to others. He had the opportunity to have the experience of life thrown at him like everyone else, but a guided opportunity to view those experiences in the context of Scout values. We are very proud of our son’s achievement and know that Scouting was a big part of that and will continue to guide him in the future.