THUNDER BAY – Local Cub Scout Howler Ryan is being applauded by the Thunder Bay RFDA for the just under one tonne of food he and his family raised during a local food drive.
“Somebody had called and talked to my co-workers and said that somebody from the cub troop was coming to bring some food, which, you know, we have food drives on a regular basis, and they came by, it was a young man named Ryan and his family,” said Brendan Carlin, community services manager, RFDA,
“They pulled up their van and we started unloading that van, and then there was another van and we started unloading that one and we think there were three vehicles in total packed to the gills with food and we just kept bringing food into the warehouse.”
The RFDA does an annual food drive and brings in roughly one tonne of food per store with all the customers and employees contributing to collecting food, Ryan and his family on the other hand, brought in over 900 kilograms that they collected from the community themselves.
Ryan’s food drive was for his Seeonee project, a project that would give him the top cub award and signal his readiness to move up from the cub scouts, he originally started with a goal of 150 items then moved on to 500 items when he hit that first goal easily, then he raised to goal to 1,000 items and in total he brought in more than 1,600 food items.
“We’re super proud of Ryan, he has been, he’s one of those youth that when he first joined us at the 6th, he really embraced what scouting was and took a lot of lessons to heart and, you know, he’s put a lot of hard work into earning this award,” said Anthony Rojik, cub scout leader,
“This project for him was kind of the last step in to learning, and we couldn’t be more happy to award him this.”
Ryan did have a little help from his family in getting the word out and taking him to pick up donations all over the city, but it was Ryan’s leadership and the example that he’s made to other cub scouts that has really cemented the fact that he deserved the award.
“When he decided that he wanted to make a contact list because of COVID instead of having a drop off, it was like, okay, it’s going to be a lot of hard work for everyone, you know, we got a wagon to do all of the collections and watching him do that,” said Caylene, Ryan’s mother,
“The first collection, there was a lot of people who put out and it was a lot of hard work carrying, cans and non-perishables are really heavy, and he would go take a break and then he’s like ‘ nope. We got to go back out because we didn’t hit every collection spot.’”
Ryan did have some advice for other Cub Scouts who are coming up and getting ready to do their Seeonee projects.
“I only have a few words, Probably, keep your confidence up, like, it’s probably the one key thing you actually really need, there were times I wanted to give up so bad,” said Ryan,
“Another thing is to actually just go out there and try to do it as best as you can, it’s just, it’s the only thing you can do.”
