Rare winter storm allows New Orleans Scouts to earn the Snow Sports merit badge

The city of New Orleans is known for a lot of cool and interesting things.

Snow is not one of them.

But earlier this winter, the city of New Orleans got 10 inches of snow in one fell swoop, eclipsing at the time the entire amount of snow Salt Lake City had gotten all winter long.

For the Amadeo family, which consists of three Scouts BSA youth and two Scouting adult volunteers, it meant one thing: an opportunity to earn the Snow Sports merit badge.

The oldest youth, Anthony Amadeo III, is 15, and he had just earned the rank of Eagle Scout a few weeks earlier. One of his goals is to earn every merit badge Scouts BSA has to offer. How many more chances would he get to earn Snow Sports?

The youngest child, Aiden, is 11, and just a month earlier on his Christmas list, he had included “airplane tickets to go scuba diving and skiing (for the merit badges).” There would be no need to fly to Michigan, though. Snow Sports had come to them. (Scuba Diving, on the other hand, will have to wait just a little bit longer.)

As the snow was falling outside, the middle child, 13-year-old Addisyn, turned to her dad and asked, “We’re going to do the Snow Sports merit badge today, aren’t we?”

Her father, Anthony Amadeo II, responded simply, “Absolutely!”

A Scouting family

The Amadeo family is active in Scouts BSA Troop 185 in New Orleans, but they often refer to their own family as Troop A₅, since all five of them — including mom Brandie — are passionate about Scouting.

When it became apparent that they were going to get enough snow to complete the merit badge, the elder Anthony Amadeo reached out to his Scouting friend in Michigan, who within minutes had connected him to a Snow Sports merit badge counselor up there.

The priority was to complete the requirements that require Scouts to actually get outside in the snow, because when it does snow in the Deep South, it typically doesn’t stay on the ground very long. The Amadeos chose the snowshoeing option, which meant they had to take a 2-mile snowshoe hike.

Over the years, the elder Amadeo and Brandie have done a lot of traveling, and they just so happened to have purchased snowshoes on a trip to Maine many years earlier. The Scouts resourcefully built a couple more pairs from old racquetball rackets and waterproof hiking boots to make sure there were plenty of snowshoes to go around.

Then it was time to hit the streets for a hike the likes of which the Amadeo kids had never experienced.

“Lifting their feet was definitely a change of routine,” Amadeo II says.

The most challenging part …

It just so happens that the Amadeos live around 1 mile from one of New Orleans’ famous levees. That seemed like a perfect destination for their snowshoe hike.

“They went throughout the neighborhoods, through some of the wetlands and up onto the levee,” the elder Amadeo says. “They played the entire hike, threw snowballs, helped each other up when they fell and enjoyed the snow.”

With the hard part out of the way, the Scouts spent much of the evening on a video call with their merit badge counselor going over the other requirements, which include discussing the hazards you are most likely to encounter while participating in snow sport activities, explaining why every snow sport participant should be prepared to render first aid in the event of an accident, and discussing the importance of strength, endurance and flexibility in snow sports.

Anthony Amadeo III, Addisyn and Aiden are believed to be some of the only Scouts from south Louisiana to ever earn the Snow Sports merit badge without leaving the state.

Less than a week after the experience, it was nearly 70 degrees in their neighborhood, and the snow was long gone.

“That was the most challenging portion,” says Anthony Amadeo II. “Seeing the snow go.”

Photos courtesy of the Amadeo family