Breakfast helps raise funds for Boy Scouts

Some funds will be used to support Camp Stambaugh in Canfield.
By SEAN BARRON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
POLAND -- A regional Boy Scouts organization is already 40 percent of the way toward reaching its annual fund-raising goal for 2006, thanks in large part to an event set up for that purpose.
So far this year, the Greater Western Reserve Council, Boy Scouts of America organization has raised about $22,000 of its goal of $55,000 for '06, with roughly $10,700 raised at Thursday's Celebration of Scouting Breakfast, sponsored by First Energy Ohio Edison.
The hourlong event at the Poland branch of the Public Library of Youngstown & amp; Mahoning County featured several speakers and was designed to raise money for a variety of scouting programs and to make it easier to send youngsters to scouting programs.
Most of the money will be used to support Camp Stambaugh on Leffingwell Road in Canfield, Camp Stigwash in Ashtabula County and other Boy Scout facilities in the five counties the council serves, Sarah Marino, its district executive, explained.
Funds also will be used for scholarships to send kids to summer and other camps, and for administrative costs, she continued.
About the council
The Warren-based Western Reserve Council, with an annual operating budget of about $1.9 million, serves Mahoning, Trumbull, Ashtabula, Lake and Geauga counties as well as eastern Portage County.
Mahoning County has about 1,300 boys ages 7 to 18 and several hundred volunteers in various Boy Scout and Cub Scout troops, Marino noted.
During the breakfast, Gary Erlinger, the organization's Scout executive, outlined several local programs implemented by the Boy Scouts of America, which was founded in 1910.
They include Learning for Life, a coed, curriculum-based program for those in kindergarten through grade 12; Scoutreach, a program in the Youngstown City School District that reaches out to underserved rural and urban areas; and Venture Scouts, set up for boys and girls ages 14 to 20. It focuses on outdoor and church-related activities, Erlinger said.
Breakfast speaker
Serving as the event's keynote speaker was Dan Rivers, talk show host on WKBN-AM 570. Acknowledging that some callers to his program still harbor negative attitudes toward the Valley, Rivers touted the progress that has been made in recent years in Youngstown and said the Scouts can play a part in moving the area in a positive direction.
"We need to build this community so our children will stay here," he said.
Rick Loudin, the Western Reserve Council's support director, said another of the organization's goals is to raise $352,000 overall this year. Similar events to Thursday's breakfast have taken place in the other four counties, he added.