John Creighton on Volunteering with the Boy Scouts of America

Discussions about the Boy Scouts tend to revolve around the benefits young boys receive from the lessons they learn in the scouts. As an article in Wired makes clear, those benefits are hard to deny. Boys who participate in Scouts learn a significant amount about environmentalism, and they have the opportunity to explore the environment in real and tactile ways. Scouts also develop a pattern of service and volunteerism that could help benefit their communities when they reach adulthood. Additionally, they develop life-saving skills involving first aid and outdoorsmanship, and these skills could help these boys save a life in an emergency. While boys can definitely benefit from the Scouts, the adults who volunteer with the organization also benefit in ways large and small. John Creighton is one of these volunteers.

For many years, John Creighton was a board member of the Chief Seattle Council of the Boy Scouts of America. As a board member, he helped set policy for the Scouts in Seattle, and he worked hard to ensure that matters of funding and access were handled promptly. It was work he enjoyed, and through his volunteer work, he became one of an estimated one million adults in the United States who volunteer with the Scouts each year.

Adults who volunteer in this way, John Creighton Seattle says, have the opportunity to help young people in the community to succeed, young people who go on to become our next generation of leaders. Scouts need adult mentors who can take them on outings, provide them with lessons and supervise over their meetings. Scouts also need mentors: Adults who are successful in their communities and who still take time to give back to those who need their help in order to succeed. By volunteering, adults have the opportunity to work as good role models for young men, and that's something all adults can get behind.