Scouts all across the St. Albert area will be helping out in any way they can for Good Turn Week, and they want you to join in too.
Scouts Canada’s sixth annual Good Turn Week runs April 25 to May 3, and the organization is challenging all Canadians to get involved – and one St. Albert troop is going above and beyond.
The 12th St. Albert Scouts will be cooking and serving a meal Thursday at Edmonton’s Mustard Seed, a not-for-profit organization that delivers services to those in need in the inner city after winning a nation-wide contest.
Sandra McCallum, the group administrator, said she’s relatively new to scouting but spotted a contest on Scouts Canada’s website for Good Turn Week where groups could submit project ideas and get funded by the national body.
“I had heard about the Mustard Seed, and sponsoring a meal, so I looked into it again and it met all the requirements for a contest,” she said. “We submitted a couple weeks later, and found out we won.”
All the group’s members, from the Beavers aged five to seven, to the Rovers, who are mostly adults, will take part in one way or another.
The Beavers and Cubs will take the $1,000 prize to a local grocery store Wednesday night to buy the ingredients, while the Scouts, Venturers and Rovers will head to the Mustard Seed Thursday to do the preparing, cooking, serving and clean up.
McCallum said she thought the Mustard Seed was a good choice for the project because of its decades of experience ministering to some of the city’s most vulnerable.
“They have an educated plan on how best to help the community,” she said. “They understand the different circumstances where people end up homeless and they’re most effective in helping them to reenter the community.”
Shayne Kawalilak, the 12th St. Albert Scouts’ group commissioner, said while he’s pleased the group can collectively do this significant good turn, Good Turn Week is also about teaching the youth about the small gestures that can improve someone’s day.
“Basically, we sit down with the youth and it’s the Scout version of pay it forward,” he said. “The youth go and perform good deeds for others with no reciprocation in mind.”
One example could be seen last Wednesday evening in the Elmer S. Gish schoolyard, where Scouts were out doing a good turn and celebrating Earth Day in one fell swoop.
“Rather than turning on the lights, they’re going to not turn on the lights, and to add in the good turn part, they’ll be cleaning up the schoolyard,” Kawalilak said. “We’ll have 30 kids out cleaning the garbage all night.”
Ultimately, he added, the most significant way for people to get involved in Good Turn Week is to turn their intentions into action, and get out of the house to help.
Far too often, people are busy but have the desire to help, which can result in simply sharing a story on Facebook or other social media but not actually contributing to a cause.
“It’s nice that the story gets shared, but everybody has the opportunity to do something nice for someone else,” he said. “If you don’t do it every day, fine, be proud that you did something this week. But just do something nice.”
