Lodges across the country make service to their council, camp and community a focus of their yearly program. Recently, the Scatacook Chapter of Owaneco Lodge took its community service a step further. The chapter wanted to provide service to the community in a meaningful and special way. The Scatacook Chapter, under the leadership of Chapter Chief Steve Rogalski and adviser Erik Zars, teamed up with Pathways Academy to provide a program for the boys highlighting some of the skills that the chapter members learned in the BSA.
Pathways Academy is a private middle school located in downtown Danbury, CT, for at-risk boys. Total enrollment in the school varies between thirty to forty boys. The school's code is the Man of Honor Code, a set of guidelines for how a young man should live his life to be a great and beneficial member of society. This code is very similar to the Boy Scout Oath and Law and, as such, a natural partnership formed between the school and Scatacook Chapter.
This idea originated as a post-NLATS goal of adviser Erik Zars, but it was truly Chapter Chief Steve Rogalski who ran with it and developed the curriculum for the program. Rogalski, along with twelve youth chapter members and two advisers, held a two-hour session focusing on four important things each person had learned in the BSA: first aid, a model campsite, orienteering skills, and knots. Each of these topics was given a thirty-minute station and each student visited every station in a round-robin fashion. The program was entirely a youth-instructing-youth education experience; the teachers and advisers were only there for emergency support. Rogalski assigned experienced youth to be the team leaders at each station and lead their fellow chapter members in the instruction. Zars commented, "The boys were very attentive and involved in the learning experience. The principal was very grateful for the program and it was a positive experience for all."
After such a successful partnership, Zars encourages other lodges and chapters to reach out in the community in similar ways.