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Venture Crew 101 offers one-of-a-kind Scouting
By Sean Barron
STRUTHERS
The action-packed Boy Scouts’ Venturing Crew 101 program is filled with ups and downs that you won’t find in the traditional Scouting handbook.
Members of this little-known unisex Scouting program, which started about six years ago, incorporate such higher-risk activities as climbing and repelling, white-water rafting and target practice with firearms.
On the tamer side of things, participants often host clothing and canned-goods drives and other fundraisers and community projects.
But for some members like 20-year-old Kelsey Wormley, the most tangible benefits lie within.
“I used to be a very shy person, but being active in Venturing made me more outgoing,” said Wormley, a Youngstown State University middle-childhood-education major and the group’s president.
Wormley spoke recently from her Poland Avenue residence about the group, which is the only one of its kind in the area.
The Venturing Crew also is affiliated with Struthers-based Boy Scout Troop 101 as well as the Greater Western Reserve Council Whispering Pines District Boy Scouts of America.
Last April and May, participants collected clothing donations and placed them in a large shipping container to be distributed to those in need, she noted. The effort was in conjunction with Goodthrift, a program that helps schools and clubs organize clothing drives by designing fliers for them and picks up the items and sends a check to the entity based on the weight of merchandise collected.
Venturing Crew 101 also works closely with the Struthers Rotary, including spearheading a Fly the Flag program, in which people have flags placed in their yards during Labor Day, Veterans Day and Memorial Day, said Wormley, who also works at Sunshine & Lollipops Learning Center, a Struthers day-care center, plays ice hockey and is a member of YSU’s Rotoract Club, which is similar to a Rotary organization.
The once-shy Wormley recently earned a Silver Award, the equivalent to an Eagle Scout and the highest one in Venturing. The honor was based largely on leadership skills, she explained.
Some Venturing Crew members will be attending the National Boy Scouts Jamboree gathering, set for Monday through July 24 at Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve in Mount Hope, W.Va. Among those will be 19-year-old Daniel Grich, Venturing Crew 101’s vice president.
“This year will be the first time the Venturing Crew will be recognized at a Jamboree,” noted Grich, an Eagle Scout and a 2012 Struthers High School graduate.
Roughly 50,000 Scouts from all over the U.S. are expected at the Jamboree event, which takes place every four years, added Grich, who also works at GFS Marketplace in Boardman.
While there, Grich said, he plans to dress in period early 20th-century clothing, adopt a British accent and take part in a re-enactment on a simulation of Brownsea Island, the largest in an archipelago near Dorset, England. The island is perhaps best known for being the site of the first Boy Scout camp in 1907.
Scouting’s 12 core values, which include compassion, honesty, perseverance and respect, have positively impacted Grich’s daily life, including his working in retail, he added.
For Wormley, venturing into Scouting has been a family affair. Her mother, Cheryl, is Venturing Crew 101 and Troop 101’s committee chairwoman and has been active in Scouting at least 15 years. In addition, Kelsey’s 23-year-old brother Christian is an Eagle Scout, and her brother Kegan, 10, is a Cub Scout.
Another upcoming trip for members of the two Struthers-based Scouting units is backpacking in the Allegheny National Forest where they expect adventure awaits them.