Earth Scouts met on Sunday February 3rd. They worked on their visions of the world, made badge books, and made some decisions about their continuing work related to human rights over the next couple of months. After discussion of various options for field trips, projects, and activities, they decided to focus human rights efforts on learning about and helping people in our community who do not get fresh food and/or do not have furnishings for their homes.
They first plan to build and maintain a "community" container garden in the courtyard of the church. The first gathering to start digging and planting will be Sunday February 17th at noon (after church). Leslie Runnels will bring containers and some seeds; the Religious Education (RE) program already has potting soil and tools, and I've purchased a few tomato and pepper plants. Our Earth Scouts will tend the garden (finding safe places for growing things when someone plays ball out there) and will donate whatever they harvest to people in need. Feeling they already knew enough about gardening, the group did not feel a need to visit other community gardens before getting started. We may reconsider this idea later. We welcome helpers on Sunday.
We also discussed making a field trip in March or early April to a pick-your-own strawberry field north of the lake. This would be a fun activity and would fit in with our theme of human rights if we donate our pickings to people in need.
We also discussed ways to collect items for the recently homeless who are now settling into apartments and lack basics such as can openers, pots and pans, towels, etc. We encourage all Earth Scouts, young and old, to think of ways to collect such materials (from families, friends, neighbors, arranging to collect yard sale leftovers, etc) and distribute them. Since the quantity (of produce and goods) is uncertain and probably not huge, we hope to work through Kathleen North on this, at least for now.
On Sunday March 9th, the Earth Scouts will have a regular monthly meeting, at which we will do some activities designed to better understand unfair resource distribution, and will decide about how we will display the badges we earn. At that time we will firm up plans for strawberry picking and/or collecting and distributing household items, and schedule maintenance for our container garden. We expect everyone will do some activities outside the regular time in the following month, because on April 13 we will have a scout and family gathering at which we will distribute the Human Rights badges to all who have worked on these projects and activities.
If you are interested in helping/joining/knowing more, contact Director of RE Coleen Murphy, re@firstuuno.org
