Thanks to you and supporters like you, Scouting in the Crater Lake Council has continued.
We appreciate how hard you have worked for the dollars you’ve provided us, and we wanted to provide an update as to how we are making sure Scouting continues locally for a long time. Beginning in March we began an aggressive campaign to cut costs. Specifically:
- We have cut over $425,000 from our budget. $220,000 of which was a result of a hiring freeze.
- The council received a payroll protection loan to help offset some of those budget pressures and continues to submit for emergency grants. This will ensure we can return staff to the field, supporting our units as soon as possible.
Why have these cuts been necessary? Of our $1.4 million dollar budget:
- $500,000 typically comes from our shuttered summer camps.
- We anticipate a drop of at least $100,000 in popcorn sales as a result of social distancing measures.
However, we aren’t giving up. Families are at home trying to learn online. Parents are stretched to their absolute limit balancing their work responsibilities and their (often new) teaching responsibilities. They need us to help provide educational opportunities for their kids and, just as importantly, safe outdoor activities for their Scouts. To that end, we have developed a couple of options:
- Beginning this Fall we will be using Adventures in a Box which will allow a family (or den) of Cub Scouts to work towards their rank advancement safely at home and away from their screens.
- We have also opened our camps this summer to small group camping and are seeing a high usage rate.
The Crater Lake Council is working hard to keep the Scouting program going and providing ways for Scouts to meet either in small groups, online, or at home as a family program but we need your help. We need to raise $250,000 between now and the end of the year to place the Council in a stable financial position, allowing us to continue keeping current Scouts active, and recruit new families to the program. Your support will make a difference in the lives of the youth we serve.
Please consider making an additional gift to support the mission of Scouting.
Crater Lake Council Staff and Board