Scouts Gather at ESF for Merit Badge Day

More than 250 boys work toward 16 badges
4/1/2011

This Saturday, April 2, the University Hill will be home to more than its usual mix of students. More than 250 boys between the ages of 11 and 17 will enter the campus of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) to get a crash course in various skills, with a helping hand from members of Alpha Phi Omega's Phi Chapter.

Between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., these boys, representing troops from the Longhouse Council of the Boy Scouts of America, headquartered in Syracuse, as well as scouts from across upstate New York, will take courses toward achieving 16 different merit badges, including Citizenship in the Nation, Computers, Engineering, Oceanography and Electronics. The SUNY-ESF paper facilities will be engaged to teach the rarer Pulp and Paper (Papermaking) merit badge program as well.

"This is the 12^th consecutive year APO has hosted Merit Badge Day," said Chapter President Meredith Nackley. "Phi Chapter goes into the surrounding community on a daily basis to do service projects. Merit Badge Day has always been a great way for us to extend our hand to local youth. We invite them up to the Hill for a taste of college and to teach them the skills they might not otherwise have had the opportunity to learn."

Alpha Phi Omega is a national co-ed service fraternity. It is the single most representative undergraduate intercollegiate organization in the United States. For more than 80 years, it has set the standard for college campus-based volunterrism. Phi Chapter was chartered on the campuses of ESF and SU in 1931.