Scouting for Food

The Rhinelander Scout USA Troops and Cub Scout Pack were hard at work on Saturday, April 5, collecting food and cash donations for the Rhinelander Area Food Pantry as part of their annual Scouting for Food community service project.

More than 20 scouts, ranging from age 6-18, participated this year, according to Pack 660 Cubmaster Joshua Kunzman. The final haul: 290 pounds of food and $600 worth of donations for the food pantry.

Aside from scout participation, Kunzman attributes much of the success to the new collection strategy the scouts adopted in recent years.

“We typically used to go door to door and put bags out, then come back a week later to pick up food donations,” Kunzman explained. “Rhinelander is such a big town, we weren’t getting a quarter of the town covered so we started doing a storefront operation two years ago.”

Now the scouts collect all the donations outside of Trig’s and Walmart, in one day, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at both locations. The scouts work in one-hour shifts, so as to give community service opportunities to as many as possible.

“In a minor amount of time, you can have a big impact on the community,” Kunzman said. “The scouts motto is ‘Do a Good Turn Daily’ and this definitely fits into that. The Cub Scouts motto is ‘Do your Best.’ Some of the scouts thought they didn’t get many donations, but they did their best, and that’s really all you can do.”

In addition to supporting a good cause, Kunzman said Scouting for Food is all about trying to instill a sense of community involvement in local youth.

“For the younger kids, they don’t quite grasp the need that the food pantry fills, but they definitely walked away knowing people were very thankful we were out there collecting donations for the food pantry,” Kunzman said. “We were able to teach them positive social interactions with adults. The main thing is for the youth to be involved in the community and that there are positive experiences for them.”

Michael Strasburg may be reached at [email protected].