Somers Cub Scout Pack 83 Not Letting COVID-19 Slow Them Down

Press release from Pack 83:

Feb. 18, 2021

While it has been a challenging time for the world, the country, and our community due to the COVID-19 pandemic, scouting with Somers Cub Scout Pack 83 continues on! Program changes have been made to abide by State of Connecticut regulations and the BSA CT River Council guidelines, including not being able to meet in person for periods of time. Still, in the past year, Pack 83 has been very active.

In March 2020, nine Webelos completed their Cub Scout journey and moved on to Boy Scouts (or other activities). Monthly pack meetings were held with games, announcements, and awards, outside when possible or via Zoom. One leader organized a fishing program through BSA for Somers Cub and Boy Scouts via Zoom, including paper clip hooks and gummy worm bait. The annual Pinewood Derby was held virtually. Scouts and their families have hiked trails at Camp Aya-Po, Whitaker Woods, McCann Family Farm, Soapstone Mountain, and Field Road Park.

Community service is a major focus of the Cub Scout program. In the last year, Pack 83 held two food drives to support Champ’s Place in Somers, with total contributions of over 1,300 pounds of food! Scouts and their families collectively made 200 holiday cards for distribution to residents at Evergreen Health Care Center in Stafford and to Somers emergency responders. Pack 83 Scouts made fourteen beautiful cozy blankets to be delivered to CT Children’s Medical Center as part of a Martin Luther King Jr Day service project. To show their appreciation to local essential employees, Den 9 Lions (the youngest Cub Scouts) created chalk artwork on the sidewalk outside the Somers Department of Public Works.

Cub Scouts are conservation minded. To this end, Pack 83 held a “town clean-up day” in October to pick up trash at Mill Pond Park and along Egypt Road in Somers. Pack 83 has continued to work with the Northern CT Land Trust (NCLT), planting native plants to beautify the parking lot of McCann Family Farm and maintaining the birdhouses made by Scouts and placed on NCLT property in Somers.

Events currently planned for the spring include monthly hikes, continued conservation projects with the Northern CT Land Trust, fishing, the annual family campout (modified as necessary for COVID-19), a Mothers’ Day community plant sale, and an outdoor celebration of scouting and those Cub Scouts moving on to Boy Scouts.

In addition to these full pack activities, each Den met either in person or via Zoom to learn and earn their belt loops/pins for advancement. Somers Pack 83 is led by an incredible group of volunteers, all parents, all dealing with COVID-19 issues in their own homes, yet giving so much of their time and energy to the Cub Scout program. And the Scouts! They are kind, giving, courageous, and truly live up to Cub Scout ideals. Somers residents can be happy and proud to have them in their community.

This press release was produced by Pack 83. The views expressed here are the author's own.