Wolf Cubs and Backpacks

The speaker at our Rotary Club last night was from the Food Bank. His talk reminded me of this Scout project, even though it's been years since I was a Wolf Den leader. I wrote this just after we completed the project.

Knowing that you've fed someone is an amazing feeling. Knowing that you've taught children to think of others, and to do something with those feelings, is even better.

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As a Scout leader, you want to involve your Scouts in service projects, to get them to think beyond themselves, and beyond their neighborhood. Since I've spent years leading both Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts, I've had the chance to help kids take on a number of projects.

Some service is fairly obvious and easy. Every Scout group I know of does a holiday food drive. My Girl Scouts also served food at a homeless shelter and tied baby quilts. My Cubs helped clean up neighborhood trash and sang Christmas carols at a nursing home. Then, while leading a Wolf Den (8 year old boys), I found an opportunity to help them think of kids their own age, living in the same community under radically different circumstances.

Our local Food Bank runs a backpack program at schools with a large number of students on free lunch and breakfast programs. Since a number of the children live in motels, shelters or campgrounds, and depend on the school for meals, they might not get anything to eat all weekend. So, the Food Bank sends them home every Friday with a backpack of no cook, individual servings of nonperishable foods. I thought that having our boys participate in a program aimed at other kids their age would help build empathy.

None of the boys in our pack are wealthy, but they lived in an entirely different universe than the kids we'd be helping. Our Cubs live in a variety of homes – apartments, condos, houses, rented or owned. They may have to share bedrooms, but not a bed. Some of the boys took advantage of the second-hand uniforms the Pack offered, but none, I'm sure, could imagine being perpetually hungry.

First, I explained the program to them, and told them what we'd be doing and who would benefit. Then, I asked them to try to imagine living in a motel room. "Your whole family is in one room. There's one or two beds, and you all have to share or sleep on the floor. There might be a table for you to do homework on. You can watch TV, but there's nowhere to play outside. There's no yard, no playground. There's a bathroom, but no kitchen. You have no refrigerator, no microwave, no stove." We talked a little about what that might be like.

Then, I asked them what they'd have for breakfast on weekends.

"Cereal!"

"OK, but you have to eat it with your hands, straight out of the box. There's no milk because you have no refrigerator to keep it in."

They looked stunned. "You might not have a bowl or spoon, either. There's hardly any room, and you'll need it for everybody's clothes and school books."

They took a moment before somebody yelled out another suggestion. You could see them thinking that maybe this wouldn't be so easy.

"Instant oatmeal!"

"Nope. You have no way to boil water, and no microwave."

"Cream of Wheat!"

"Same problem. No microwave, no stove."

"Pop Tarts!"

"OK! You can have Pop Tarts. But they'll be cold. You have no toaster."

"At home, we use a toaster oven."

"We do, too," I told them, "but you can't have one in a motel. They aren't allowed."

"That's OK. I like my Pop Tarts cold," one Scout said gamely.

We eventually decided that for breakfast, we could have, besides cold Pop Tarts, granola bars, fruit and cereal bars, premade Rice Krispie treats, fruit snacks, applesauce or fresh fruit. I pointed out that fresh fruit was something we couldn't collect, because it would spoil before the Food Bank had a chance to sort and deliver it.

Then we moved on to lunch. "What would you have for lunch?"

"Macaroni and cheese!" one excited Scout piped up. "I make it all the time. It's really easy. And, it's good."

"You can't boil the water. Besides, you have no butter or milk, because you have no refrigerator to keep them in." The look on this boy's face said that he simply could not imagine being unable to make macaroni and cheese. It was a completely foreign idea.

"Ramen noodles!" one boy offered. These are the sorts of foods you start being able to cook for yourselves when you're eight years old.

I felt like a broken record. "No stove, no microwave, no way to boil water."

"What about the cups of instant ramen noodles?"

"You'd still need to boil water. You could try hot water out of the bathroom, but it wouldn't be hot enough and wouldn't work very well."

Several of their next suggestions – Spaghettios, canned ravioli, canned soup – could be eaten cold out of the can. When someone said, "Sandwiches!" I thought that they were finally internalizing the restrictions. "What would you put on your sandwiches?"

"Ham!"

"Turkey!"

Again, I explained that meats needed a refrigerator. A boy ventured, "Cheese! Grilled cheese."

"You can't grill it. You don't have a stove or a pan. And cheese goes bad out of the refrigerator, too."

"Tuna fish comes in a can!" One Scout was sure he had it figured out.

"Tuna is high protein, and that's good. It comes in a can or a pouch and doesn't need the refrigerator, and that's good." The boy smiled. "But, you usually mix it with something before you put it in the sandwich. What is that?" Mayonnaise or salad dressing, I told them, also need a refrigerator. "But have you ever seen those little cans of tuna spread that come with crackers? Those are really good, and everything is right there in the package. They also make those lunch packages with ham spread."

They still hadn't guessed my favorite sandwich filling, and one that the Food Bank specifically requested. "What else can you put in sandwiches?" After a few nonfeasible suggestions such as egg salad and a few, "I dunnos," I said, "How about peanut butter?"

"Yeah! Peanut butter and jelly!"

Maybe not jelly, I told them, since a lot of jams and jellies need refrigerated after opening. "But peanut butter is high protein, and doesn't need a refrigerator, so it's a really good choice. You can have it on bread or crackers."

I suggested nuts or beef jerky, too, since they are both high protein. Protein is a big deal, I told the boys, because it's what builds cells in our bodies. "But protein foods are expensive, so if you don't have a lot of money it's hard to get enough." None of the boys thought a lunch of beef jerky sounded too wonderful, but I assured them that when they got older and went on Scout camping trips, they'd find out it was a great camping or backpacking food, too. I brought up other foods like trail mix, a term that puzzled them until I said, "It's like granola."

To go with our sandwiches, crackers or jerky we talked about raisins, granola bars, and the crackers or pretzels or breadsticks that come packaged with cheese spread. That kind of cheese, I told them, doesn't need a refrigerator. Plus, they come in individual containers. I reminded the boys often that we needed individual containers. "It costs more that way, but if you have nowhere to store food or leftovers you can't open a big jar of applesauce. It will go bad. You need the little single serving cups." We talked about individual cans of fruit, and how the pull top made it easy even if you didn't have a can opener.

When we got to, "How about dinner?" the boys were stumped. They couldn't think of anything else we hadn't talked about.

"So, you'll probably have the same kinds of stuff for dinner that you had for lunch. If you had peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, you'll want something different, like tuna and crackers, for dinner." I thought about asking what these kids we were collecting for might have for special occasions, but feared that would sidetrack the Scouts' thinking. I had a note prepared for their parents, but I wanted suitable foods and the reasons for them firmly in the boys' heads.

The notes went home, and the next week the food came in. I was so proud - there was not a single inappropriate donation. Some boys brought used backpacks, too, and I spent time with a Sharpie obliterating their names and info.

The Food Bank was delighted by our 29 pounds of donations. They sent the den a thank you note.

When the boys get older, there will be time for them to contemplate the roots of poverty, and how to fix those issues. They'll be exposed to debates about how drug abuse affects both poverty and child abuse. They may struggle with questions about helping kids whose parents fail to provide basics because of substance abuse. But for the moment, at eight years old, their world had broadened just enough to imagine, "What if it was me?" They reached out to other children with compassion. That's a pretty good day's work.