I joined Scouting late and with trepidation. Being an older kid and having no experience with the program left me entirely clueless as to what I was walking into. In addition to my seniority, I began my experience in the Boy Scouts of America having spent my junior year with Scouting Ireland. 

That being said, I’m no stranger to the outdoors. I grew up spending my summers hiking the Virginia and Maryland sections of the AT with a Quaker summer camp. That time spent in nature was my reset, a place where I became myself again with just the right amount of sunlight and good company. That world, however, faded away when I returned to school and “real” life. Every fall, I felt the loss of that community again and again. 

3000 miles away, in a completely unfamiliar world, I found one thing that looked similar to that community. Scouting Ireland presented me with the same opportunity camp did: to connect with my peers through a shared interest in and love of nature. In the kind of community I didn’t know existed outside of camp I made fantastic friends, and we went on equally fantastic adventures. In May of 2022, when I returned to the US, I wasn’t sure how I was going to find that community again. 

By some stroke of luck, a friend of  mine gave me the number of a girl she knew who was in the BSA. I, realizing this was my way back to a group of people that spent inordinate amounts of time in nature, immediately messaged her. 

My first meeting with Xyla Carlson in June was simultaneously awkward and exciting. I got the details, heard the pros and cons, and immediately decided to join the BSA. Why not? The trips they were going on seemed cool, Xyla seemed like an awesome person and, most importantly, I had nothing better to do. 

My last-minute choice turned into one of the best decisions I’ve ever had the good fortune to accidentally make. 

I’ve spent the weekends of my senior year floating down the Youghiogheny river, backpacking sections of the AT, setting up tarps in pouring rain and filling my pockets with soon-to-be-crushed paw paws. 

This May, one year after leaving Scouting Ireland, I’ll be beginning my Eagle Scout project. As I prepare to graduate and head to college, I’ve started a quiet year in review. I found, pretty quickly, the moments that I remembered the most, the ones that really stuck out to me, were the ones that happened during scouting activities or alongside the people I met through scouting. 

The simple fact that there were people in Scouting who were persistently kind, helpful, interesting, and, on occasion, downright hilarious brought me back for every trip and activity, every meeting. I’m in the kind of debt you can’t ever repay to these people, so I’ll mention their names here just to ease the weight of my guilt. 

Firstly my peers, who made just about any ill-advised adventure tolerable if not fun: Xyla Carlson, Jamie McElwain, Tammy McElwain, Zach Fox, and Theo King. I could not, of course, have gone on any trip or been involved in Scouts in the first place without the adults who supported my journey: namely Dr. Andrea Lommen, Stu Van Ormer, Doug Welch, and every leader of Lancaster County’s Troop 99.