The Boy Scouts of America has since 1916 held a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code. As part of fulfilling the obligations of that charter BSA delivers a recap of Scouting’s previous year to the United States Congress annually.
Here are some highlights of that report:
- Scouts camped a total of 6,093,410 nights during 2013.
- 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.
- During 2013, Scouts across America recorded 17,042,938 hours of service to their communities.
- 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.
- Scouts and Scouters collected millions of pounds of food through Scouting for Food.
- More than 7,900 volunteers serve more than 19,750 youth annually on military bases around the world.
- 56,841 Scouts earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 2013.
- The BSA has awarded more than 100,000 Presidential Active Lifestyle Awards to Scouts completing a 60 day fitness challenge.
- The number of STEM-related merit badges was increased to 61.
- 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.