Troop 30 meeting outside and masked

With the Coronavirus crisis still forcing school changes and mask mandates in Massachusetts, Troop 30 is meeting outdoors every week.

Outdoor meetings on Thursdays in October and November? Absolutely — Be Prepared is our motto, after all. Scouts wear masks, always, and when the weather is cool, they have jackets. Now that everyone is trained in setting up a lantern, we’re able to work on advancement, we’ve had an election of new leaders and we’ve even met with Cub Scouts who will move up to Troop 30 in early 2021.

So far this year, Troop 30 has had a campout — also with Webelos, the oldest of the Cub Scouts — where we’ve mastered orienteering, outdoor cooking and and the eating of chocolate cake made in a Dutch oven on the fire.

This year has been a very unusual year in the history of scouting in Watertown, no doubt, but we are continuing to serve the community. Since the pandemic hit, one scout took his family to clean up a section of the Charles River, filling an entire car with trash to haul away. One planted a tree at a state campsite on behalf of the family of a longtime camper who died of Covid earlier this year.

And, we have our Eagles. Michael McNamara received his Eagle rank this summer after building secure storage for the Watertown Food Pantry. Another Eagle project is currently under way.

Troop 30 has always had a strong outdoor program, but now that the safest place to be is outside, we’re doubling-down on those efforts. Any youth who has completed fifth grade is welcome to join us.

Scouts learn citizenship and leadership, but there’s so much more they do. Scouts learn to camp, to cook and how to build a campfire. They also have plenty of opportunity to make friends as they sit around a campfire — just in masks, this year.

Troop 30 is for boys and girls in Watertown, Allston and Brighton. Contact us at watertowntroop30@gmail.com to learn more.