See inside the 2013 Report to the Nation

The Boy Scouts of America is a 3.6-million-strong, outdoor-ready, community-serving, patriotism-preserving, values-validating force for good. And we’re just getting started.

But wait. I’m preaching to the choir here.

The real people who need to know about the BSA and our 6 million nights of camping, 56,841 Eagle Scouts and 17 million hours of community service last year are the ones who don’t don a uniform each week.

That’s why a group of nine outstanding BSA representatives have descended upon Washington, D.C., this week to deliver the 2013 Report to the Nation. Think of it as the CliffsNotes version of the past year in Scouting.

The idea is to make it easy for politicians, CEOs and members of non-Scouting families to see that Scouting continues to create “conscientious, responsible and productive citizens” — as the last line of the report puts it.

First I’ll point out my favorite parts of the Report to the Nation, and then I’ll share the full report so you can pick out your own highlights. It’s all after the jump.

10 highlights from the 2013 Report to the Nation
  1. Scouts camped a total of 6,093,410 nights during 2013.
  2. The BSA has more than 2.6 million youth members and more than 1 million adult volunteers in more than 280 local councils throughout the United States and its territories.
  3. During 2013, Scouts across America recorded 17,042,938 hours of service to their communities.
  4. Put those hours of service against the national volunteer-hour value of $22.14 and that’s more than $377 million worth of service in 2013.
  5. Scouts and Scouters collected millions of pounds of food through Scouting for Food.
  6. More than 7,900 volunteers serve more than 19,750 youth annually on military bases around the world.
  7. 56,841 Scouts earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 2013. (More Eagle Scout numbers here.)
  8. The BSA has awarded more than 100,000 Presidential Active Lifestyle Awards to Scouts completing a 60-day fitness challenge.
  9. The number of STEM-related merit badges was increased to 61.
  10. 1.1 million Scouts attended our high-adventure camps in New Mexico, Minnesota, and Florida, as well as thousands of our day and summer camps
The 2013 Report to the Nation

Read the whole thing here (PDF).


About Bryan Wendell 3282 Articles
Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, is the founder of Bryan on Scouting and a contributing writer.