Scouts reach out to Hispanics

The Boy Scouts of America are breaking the language barrier.

For the first time in Scouting's 75-year history, the organization published its Cub Scout "Wolf" handbook in Spanish this past fall. Greg Shields, national Scout spokesman in Irving, Texas, said work is now under way to print the main Boy Scout handbook in Spanish as well.

The Tiger Cub book was released in Spanish last year.

"We have to reach out to these (Hispanic) communities," Shields said.

He admits at some 500 pages, the Boy Scout handbook will be twice the project the Wolf handbook was to translate into Spanish.

"We hope to keep expanding our library," he said.

According to Tom Saldivar, district executive for the Great Salt Lake Council of the Boy Scouts and leader of the Scout Reach program, Hispanic Scouting is surprisingly big in the inner-city area of Salt Lake City.

"We have our own little Los Angeles," he said. "Spanish Scouting in Salt Lake is expanding."

Saldivar said after-school Cub Scouting programs are regularly held at six elementary schools: Washington, Bennion, Rose Park, Franklin, Newman and Meadowlark. Some 250 children are involved at those schools and another 200 in smaller programs. Some of the schools are essentially co-sponsors of the After School Scouting program. "These Cubs are 80 percent Hispanic," he said. "They're solid," he said of the programs that are staffed by Scouting professionals and a few volunteers, most of whom speak Spanish.

"Parental support is the No. 1 hurdle," he said. He said the Spanish-language Boy Scout books will help educate parents who do not speak English about Scouting. Immigrants from Mexico or South America have had little or no exposure to Scouting in their native countries.

Saldivar believes the program could involve 1,000 boys by next spring.

Another program blends soccer into after-school Scouting. Some of the soccer teams are co-ed and bring in the boys' sisters for the after-school activities.

"Their parents were born with a soccer ball on their foot," he said. "Soccer is the one universal."

Saldivar believes the next generation will take care of itself once a foundation is started in Scouting.

"We're right in the trenches. It's us (Scouting) or gangs," he said.

The 2005 Scout-o-Rama also will have a Spanish twist to it.

More information on Hispanic Scouting in Salt Lake City is available through Saldivar at 582-3663, extension 204.

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E-mail: lynn@desnews.com