Thread: Boy Scouts see Hispanics as key to boosting ranks

Boy Scouts see Hispanics as key to boosting ranks

Dec 26, 2008 9:53 AM (56 mins ago) By JULIANA BARBASSA, AP

SAN JOSE, Calif. (Map, News) - As it prepares to turn 100, the Boy Scouts of America is honing its survival skills for what might be its biggest test yet: drawing Hispanics into its declining - and mostly white - ranks.

"We either are going to figure out how to make Scouting the most exciting, dynamic organization for Hispanic kids, or we're going to be out of business," said Rick Cronk, former national president of the Boy Scouts, and chairman of the World Scout Committee.

The venerable Scouts remains the United States' largest youth organization, with 2.8 million children and youths, nearly all of them boys. But that is nearly half its peak membership, reached in 1972.

Its rolls took hits through the 1980s and '90s over a still-standing ban on gay or atheist leaders, and scandals surrounding inflated membership numbers. In addition, teenagers raised on TV and shoot-'em-up games had less use for learning to build a campfire or memorize the Scout oath.
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The country changed too. One in five children under 18 is Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census. But they make up only 3 percent of Scouts.

Cronk made Hispanic outreach a focus after he realized that just translating brochures into Spanish, or combining Cub Scouting with soccer, was not enough to meet the goal of doubling Hispanic membership by the group's centennial in 2010.

"We were nibbling around the edges," Cronk said. "We knew very little about the Hispanic family, how they see us, what they value."

Cronk, past president of Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, grew up a city kid in Oakland, Calif. He fell in love with Scouting in the Sierra Nevada, during his first backpacking excursions.

He looked at the problem of Latino underrepresentation as a businessman. The Boy Scouts had a good product but much of its new consumer base had never heard of it.

So the group set out to sell Scouting, hiring a Washington-based media and marketing company that targets Latinos. To spread the word, the Scouts gathered a committee of Hispanic leaders, including the CEO of AT&T's wireless unit, a U.S. senator from Florida and the archbishop of the Diocese of Laredo.

In 2009, the Boy Scouts is kicking off pilot programs in six heavily Latino cities, from Fresno, Calif. to Orlando, Fla., to test ways of introducing Scouting to immigrant parents. The group is also planning radio and television spots, hiring bicultural, Spanish-speaking staffers, partnering with churches that serve Hispanics and shaping programs to fit the family-oriented community.

"We're serious about this," said Rob Mazzuca, Chief Scout Executive. "This is a reinventing of the Boy Scouts of America."

To work, the changes will have to run deep, said Julio Cammarota, a University of Arizona professor who has researched Hispanic youth.

Scouts will have to work with Latinos' strong family connections and relax the focus on individual achievement, Cammarota said. Creating activities where younger boys learn from the older ones - much as they rely on siblings and cousins within the extended family - will also feel more comfortable.

"They'd be better off starting with a carne asada in a city park," Cammarota said. "Sending their kids away on their own, that's not familiar."

Scouting's traditional values dovetail well with those of Hispanic families - respect, discipline, and community involvement - said Carlos Alcazar, CEO of Hispanic Communications Network, which developed the 2009 strategy after conducting a yearlong survey of Hispanic attitudes toward the Scouts.

As a dozen boys wearing the light blue Soccer and Scouting jerseys tumbled into an auditorium in San Jose's Seven Trees Elementary School, nearly breathless from a game played in the December chill, it was clear they loved the program - certainly the soccer part of it. But the connection to Scouting remained tenuous.

Michael Gudino, 7, and his brother Matthew Gudino, 6, talked about what they loved best: dribbling the ball, learning to pass and playing on a real field.

Pressed on what they like about Scouting, they stopped to think.

"Learning to be nice to each other?" Michael said tentatively. "Folding the flag?"

Their mother, Sandy Gudino, was pleased to find that Scouting was no more expensive than other youth activities, and she likes the discipline that comes with it.

Valente Morales, whose 6-year-old son Valentin's soccer skills had improved in just a few months, was won over by the coach - a Hispanic parent like himself.

"The trust came from becoming familiar with the people who run it, the people in this community," he said.

While soccer may be the draw, the Scouts' challenge is to keep the youngsters involved when the game is over, said Marcos Nava, director of the National Hispanic Initiatives Division, who was visiting the San Jose program.

"One hundred years - that's a great benchmark for us," Nava said. "But we have to remember, to Hispanics, we're just at the introduction, the basics. Because if we don't get past that stage, we won't live to see another 100 years."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.examiner.com/a-1763452~Boy_S ... ranks.html

Boy Scouts launch campaign to boost their Latino ranks and staff
The Hispanic Initiatives pilot program will target boys and adults in six U.S. areas with radio commercials, online efforts and Spanish-language materials. Only three of every 100 Scouts are Latino.
By Steve Chawkins
January 4, 2009
Aiming to boost their sagging numbers, the Boy Scouts are launching a million-dollar campaign to draw more Latinos, a group that has long resisted Scouting's appeal.

But the Scouts' national officials acknowledge that it may be a tough sell. Only three of every 100 Scouts are Latino, and some immigrant families see such groups as an indulgence of the well-to-do in their home countries. Some also bristle at the uniforms.

"We go in in a uniform that looks like the Border Patrol," said Paul Moore, head of the Scouts' Los Angeles Area Council. "Then we ask [adult volunteers] to fill out complex applications that ask for their Social Security numbers. I think we've found some good ways in L.A. to deal with some of these things, but we have to do a better job of getting parents to see Scouting as something that aligns with their hopes and dreams for their kids."

For 2009, the Scouts have targeted six heavily Latino areas across the U.S., including Fresno and San Jose, for a pilot program called Hispanic Initiatives. Radio commercials, public service announcements and messages on such social networking websites as Facebook will underscore the similarity between Scouting's ideals and traditional Latino family values, officials said.

The effort -- which also focuses on New York; Chicago; Orlando, Fla.; and Harlingen, Texas -- will stress the hiring of more Latino staff, a goal the organization has set for its 304 local councils across the U.S.

"We're telling them you need your staff to mirror the community you're trying to serve," said Marcos Nava, the Scouting executive in charge of the campaign. "We have about 3,000 professionals -- full-time employees -- but only 194 are bilingual and bicultural."

Language has been a stumbling block to recruitment, especially to letting immigrant parents know more about Scouting programs. "I can't tell you how many times I've heard the same thing from local councils," Nava said. " 'If only we had someone who spoke Spanish.' "

Some ongoing programs will be stepped up. Scouts and their leaders will have access to more Spanish materials, such as the Manual del Wolf, a translation -- published a few years ago -- of the Cub Scouts' Wolf Handbook. Additional ethnically targeted efforts, such as the popular Scouting and Soccer program, will be devised. More high-profile Latinos will be wooed to serve on local boards.

Scouting executives consider Hispanic Initiatives, which is being managed by a Washington, D.C., marketing firm, crucial to the organization's long-term viability.

"It can't be all Norman Rockwell Caucasian guys like me," said John Richers, the director of Fresno's Boy Scout council. "I'm hoping that Scouting tomorrow looks more like Marcos Nava than John Richers. We have to make sure we still have relevance in the new America, if you will."

That's not a new concern.

"It's a very familiar story," said Jay Mechling, an Eagle Scout who went on to become a UC Davis professor of American studies. "It's been nearly 100 years that they've been trying to figure this out."

Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America sought to build character and shield youths from unhealthy urban influences.

It was "city rot," declared one of the founders, that "has turned such a large proportion of our robust, manly, self-reliant boyhood into a lot of flat-chested cigarette smokers."

For decades, the Scouts were mainly white and middle-class, despite occasionally successful efforts to draw inner-city minorities.

But their ranks have been thinning for years, despite periodic efforts to brighten their 1950s image.

The Boy Scouts offer a merit badge in cinematography and lessons against copyright infringement. They offer co-ed after-school and adventure programs.

Until a redo last year, they were wearing uniforms designed by Oscar de la Renta. Still, their numbers fell from more than 4 million in the early 1990s to about 3 million today.

Video games and computers have kept kids indoors and out of Scouts, some officials say. Headlines about phony recruitment numbers, as well as the Scouts' heavily publicized positions against atheism and homosexuality, have not helped, with schools in some areas reconsidering their long-standing support of Scout troops.

While the U.S. Latino population has grown by more than 50% since 1990, few have a family member with fond memories of poking Scout campfires or mastering the Cat's Paw knot.

"The vast majority can honestly say their grandfathers, fathers and uncles were not in Scouting as youths," says a fact sheet from the Scouts' marketing division. "This is an unfortunate reality when one takes into account that Hispanic Americans/Latinos are among the most 'brand loyal' consumers in this country."



steve.chawkins@latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 3922.story

Perhaps they would have better luck if they changed their name to Boy Scouts of Mexico!

Originally Posted by carolinamtnwoman

Perhaps they would have better luck if they changed their name to Boy Scouts of Mexico!

Yep. And offered more culturally sensitive projects such as basics in smuggling and urban gang warfare.

Originally Posted by azwreath

Originally Posted by carolinamtnwoman

Perhaps they would have better luck if they changed their name to Boy Scouts of Mexico!

LOL! When do the get their coyote badge?



Yep. And offered more culturally sensitive projects such as basics in smuggling and urban gang warfare.