By Ryan Levin, Cub Scout Pack 874 Cubmaster 2024-2025
Cub Scout Pack 874 has been meeting at Glen Mar for over 70 years. For at least the last decade, the pack and its leadership have been strong supporters of the Wish Upon a Star Program, typically providing gifts for children in the age groups of the pack membership. In 2024, the pack adopted 12 children – 6 boys and 6 girls ages 5 to 10 – and purchased over 50 gifts and assembled several bicycles. Pack 874’s continuous support has been a significant contribution to Wish Upon a Star, empowering the program to support several more families during the holidays. We have greatly appreciated this long-standing partnership and would like to share below what the pack has to say about its participation in Wish Upon a Star.
I have personally been a part of Wish Upon a Star for the last six years, and several of our leaders have been participants and personal contributors over the past decade. Starting as a den leader for the 5 year olds (Lions), I initially felt it was very nice to contribute to a meaningful and well-organized service project. While I did not understand its significance early on, I soon witnessed the magic in our scouts’ charity and their excitement in purchasing gifts for kids their age.
Every new cub scout year, we start with our popcorn fundraiser in the fall to financially support our many activities and charities. That’s when you see our – and other – packs outside local stores and venues. Many folks also donate unsolicited. Our pack has been very fortunate to raise enough funds to cover our activities and especially emphasize our charitable giving with more than 60% of our income! Once we understand our abilities, we commit to as many Wish Upon a Star recipients as we can support. Then comes the shopping!
We could make it easy on ourselves and simply ask parents to shop with a budget, but that would be a great missed opportunity. Most of our younger scouts have never battled poverty and conveying a sense of lacking and the impact that a kind gesture can have can be difficult and unrelatable. It is wonderfully heartwarming to see the excitement when our scouts shop not for themselves but for the Wish Upon a Star kids we adopted. Their imagination and creativity kick into high gear as they race down the store aisles to look for the perfect gift on the recipients’ wish lists. Using their unique matching-age perspective (something we adults typically lack), they debate among themselves which gift would be more cherished by the recipient, finally placing the agreed upon treasure in the cart. The pride they exude while pulling the full cart up to checkout is not something I would have expected and is the cherry on top of the whole experience. Our scouts benefit greatly from this experience through their exercise of charity, teamwork, decision-making, and compromise. With our assistance, scouts are also in charge of keeping a tally to ensure we adhere to our budget.
Pack 874 leadership has surveyed the scouts every year about their favorite service project, and we consistently and overwhelmingly hear “Wish Upon a Star.” We would very much like to thank Glen Mar for doing the legwork on the coordination of this service project and the consideration we receive as we get our matched-age recipients pulled out in advance of releasing the others to the church. We are excited and look forward to this partnership for years to come!