G has been in Cub Scouts since 1st grade. He has the most amazing den leaders and great group of boys that have been together for 4+ years. Since I’m a Girl Scout leader I tried to convince hubby that it was his job to oversee all this Boy Scout stuff. He more of less agreed with me but in the last year he’s been working on the days they traditionally meet AND this is the big important year of checking out with Boy Scout troop they want to join. Does hubby want to go interview 5+ Boy Scout troops? No, he does not. Do I? Well… yes, yes I do.
I’ve been learning so much about Boy Scouts this last year 🙂
Feel free to comment and correct me if I’m wrong but they have two ‘Webelo’ years, the second of which they are ‘Arrow of Light’ (or AOL). They are eligible to go to Camporal both years, which is where the Boy Scouts put on a camping weekend with fun contests and scout skills that they run and your boy (or, girl now really…) can talk to the different troops and meet the boys. In G’s first Webelo year he couldn’t go to Camporal (no one else could either) so the district ended up inviting the boys for the day to Camporee. Which is the SAME thing as Camporal but exclusively for the Boy Scouts to compete themselves where they aren’t helping the little ones. Anyway, about 8 boys went just for the day back in April 2018. They had a great time. Hubby couldn’t go, since he was at work, and I had to oversee Sam doing stuff so I basically dropped him off and then came back later that day. It was awesome though. So many troops in the Canyons District and Paul Martin was awesome at overseeing the Webelos. He made a followup video for advertising purposes that I will link here.
So I had made a whole list of Yorba Linda Troops for G to hunt down. That day I got such an education! Yorba Linda is in a COMPLETE different district than Anaheim Hills! (I will spare you the long story of why we live in Yorba Linda but go to an Anaheim Hills cub scout troop.) So none of those troops were there because it was only a Canyons District event. Bummer.
Yorba Linda is in the Portola District which also serves… do you know I just spent five minutes trying to figure that out and I can’t? At the bare minimum, they serve Yorba Linda, Placentia… PROBABLY Brea? You would think they would put it on their website but I can’t find it!
Portola Boy Scout District Website – They have a long list of troops in there but just number, not city.
Portola Boy Scout Facebook Page – They say Anaheim Hills in there. They do not serve Anaheim Hills? And it was last updated in 2015.
Boy Scout Orange County Website – Where they describe their 12 districts that they serve (but no city areas).
Canyons Boy Scout District Website – At least Canyons has their web team together, they are serving Orange, Tustin, and Anaheim.
Ahh well, for the most part these are all volunteer positions, so what can ya do.
Yorba Linda Boy Scout Troops
Doing an Internet search is not too hard but some of the websites are not updated on the official Boy Scout websites. For the most part, the websites are pretty much hidden from public view but they have one or two pages for you to figure out when their meetings are and a few pictures to see what the troop is like. Again, these are all volunteers and I’m sure the boys probably help a great deal in keeping things updated. They all look like they were made in the 90’s but at least they are active!
I’m not going to list all the troops because I’m sure I missed a few but will list my thoughts (and G’s!) very briefly. I will say that EVERY SINGLE TROOP is fantastic, has fantastic people volunteering their time, and would be great for your child. It’s just all about what they feel comfortable with. And honestly, the day and time they meet is pretty important too. It seems like most of Canyons meets on Tuesdays and Portola seems to meet on Monday’s with a few exceptions.
Boy Scout Troop 824 – They meet out of the Santa Clara De Asis Church which is really close to us. At this time, this website doesn’t list any contact information for how to join. My old neighbor is an active member so I knew it was an active troop (plus their Google calendar was listing activities) but I had to track down their Facebook page, harass the person doing messages, and finally get an email. If they still don’t have contact info, you should do the same! At the time of this writing, the met on Monday’s from 7-815 and David Glenday was their Scoutmaster.
Boy Scout Troop 778 – Meets out of Saint Martin de Porres Catholic Church on Monday’s and during the summer, meets at Jessamyn Park. We went to an ice cream social and the boys had fun doing some rope work. This was one of the first troops we visited and the Mom’s were really fantastic. It seemed like there was a lot of Mom’s involved, which the parents of my den really appreciated. Some boy scout troops (as you will learn), don’t want the Mom’s around and others will reluctantly agree that they can come, and a few troops just welcome then with open arms. I honestly see pluses and minuses to each scenario but a few boys in our den have some medical issues that Mom’s would feel really uncomfortable letting their boys go overnight while they are still 10yo and 11yo. Anyway, this troop really gets into hiking. They have an ‘All Peaked Out’ patch and do a lot of hiking/backpacking trips that sounded fun. They were also planning summer camp at Fiesta Island in San Diego which sounded fun.
Boy Scout Troop 762 – Moving west, the meeting spot at Yorba Linda Methodist Church, was this fabulous troop. Oh, this was really high on G’s list, I think because of the familiarity of it. He often goes to church with Grandma here, Pastor Greg is really involved, and the Boy Scouts really rolled out the welcome mat for all who came. They play games with the boys and made a special dutch oven dessert for them. This troop is really small but trying to grow, they only have 15 boys so about 7 were there that night. They do a lot with their sibling Cub Scout Pack 580 so I imagine they will have no trouble growing in the future with all the support they are getting from the church. It’s so nice because their Eagle Scout projects are literally just making the church & preschool amazing in so many different ways. Ken Oyama is their current Scoutmaster and had a nice and caring way about him. He was also joined by a previous Scout Master who is now assistant. They also meet on Monday’s.
Boy Scout Troop 733 – We didn’t visit them, honestly they were a little “too” far for me so I didn’t want to confuse G but they look super active. They meet at the Danish Lutheran Church off of Bastanchury.
Boy Scout Troop 1775 – Lives in the amazing Friends Christian School, which is a very huge place. I did get lost going there but there were so many things going on that night that some nice individual escorted me over. It didn’t help that Google Maps put the address on the other side of the street. So this troop was craze organized. I don’t know how many boys that were in the troop officially but they had a lot of parent support. One of the Mom’s was the troop’s official membership coordinator and she drew us off in another room to talk with us. I was a little bummed at that, as I wanted to see how the boys interacted together but it was also good to get the scoop. Denise was super helpful and she had a four page document that went over every single thing. She was my spirit animal. This was one of the troops that really discouraged Mom involvement but as they explain, it’s for the best. So I get it. They make exceptions for medical issues, of course, and it’s not forbidden but just really discouraged. All the boys change a little bit when they see their Mama (or ANY Mama) hanging around! At the end of the night though, my boy wasn’t feeling it but he said they were all very nice.
Boy Scout Troop 99 – Our favorite, the one G has chosen, is the oldest troop west of the Mississippi. They meet at the only Scout House in Yorba Linda which is next to the community center and Hurless Barton Park. They just recently started meeting on Sundays, which is great for us. It’s the coolest little building and part of the scout’s work is to fix it up. They recently have been building tables inside. The current scoutmaster, Shane Adams, is so warmly welcoming and completely into the whole Boy Scout experience. We just felt like we had found the perfect place for us. Our first visit was great, and we ended up going back a month later to drag a few of our den members, and after the second visit we had a bunch of boys declare they wanted to join. I could go on and on about all the super great things about it but if you are visiting all these troops, you will figure it out for yourself! We are going to start going to the monthly STEM meetings that are an additional perk for the boys interested in that type of thing that G is pretty excited about. They are going to camp in Washington (yes, the state) for the summer and I’m already dreading sending G on a plane without me. Granted, we are invited! I just don’t want to take off a full week of work (since I assume there is no wifi!) for boy scout camping… I’m pretty positive that some of the Mom’s will go though (or Dad’s!) so at least I can harass for updates…
Honorable Anaheim Hills Boy Scout Troop Mentions
We are with Cub Scout Pack 546 out of Running Springs Elementary, which is an awesome pack, btw. Many of their scouts end up joining Boy Scout Troop 538. We went to visit and saw a ton of old friends there. They meet on Tuesday’s though which was basically out for us.
Boy Scout Troop 241 meets over at St Paul’s Lutheran Church over in Orange. Our old cub scoutmaster, Shane Hendrickson is over there and I love him and his enthusiasm for scouting and his love for all the boys. He encouraged us all to visit but… if I have to drive to scouting at least once a week, I want it to be close! Plus, the possibility of G knowing other boys from his future schools. So we didn’t visit, but I encourage everyone to go check them out. Plus, I’m in their with their AMAZING website. It’s gorgeous and has so much info on it. Kudos to their web team!
That’s the writeup! I hope you have fun exploring the Boy Scout Troops of Yorba Linda as much as we did!
(Yep, I’m pretty happy to be done.)
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