The Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council of Scouting America held its annual Scout-o-Rama in History Park in San Jose on Saturday, May 10 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event had over 120 booths which featured activities such as woodworking, glass blowing and face painting, along with games including water rockets, bouncy houses and scooter races. Over 100 Scouting America troops across Silicon Valley participated, along with local organizations such as Santa Clara County Parks. The event was sponsored by Bellarmine College Preparatory, which ran a robotics booth.
Dan Krent, the Pioneer District chairman, helps organize Scout-o-Rama every year and has been attending since 2006. For Krent, Scout-o-Rama means celebrating the diversity of scouting — from the age ranges to the activities that Scouts participate in to the diversity of the Scouts themselves. On the day of the event, Krent handled finding range masters for the archery and BB ranges, as well as supplying the hardware for the water rocket launchers.
“This committee really gets really started around the November time frame and puts a lot of effort into getting this all organized with all the units that participate,” Krent said. “This doesn’t happen without a whole lot of people participating. The number of booths that we have here — each one has a dedicated staff to put it together. And it happens. We put together this whole thing in a couple of hours on Saturday morning.”
One booth was run by Exploring, a partner of Scouting America and a medical troop dedicated to providing medical education and opportunities primarily for high schoolers. Aadya Nannayyagari, the vice president of outreach, was involved in running the booth and recruiting volunteers and new members.
“We chose to have a booth here because we need more people to know what we’re doing, so we can get more people into medical care because it’s really important,” Nannayyagari said. “We think it’s a great opportunity for people to know how to do medical things. [Participating in Scout-o-Rama] means to be more involved with the community — communication and get to know people.”
Jonathan Day, an assistant scoutmaster, agrees with Nannayyagari on the community aspect. Day has been attending Scout-o-Rama with his two sons for 13 years, both of whom were part of the Scouting program through elementary, middle and high school.
“Scout-o-Rama obviously means a lot to the members of the community who are already involved in scouting,” Day said. “It’s an opportunity to get together and have a lot of fun with your friends, but it’s also an opportunity for the scouters in the community to showcase what Scouting is. We invite the community to come and participate, and we want to promote scouting and the values that we try to embody in Scouting. But we also try and promote Scouting so that we can get more people involved, and because we believe that it’s a good program. It helps raise youth who will be good citizens, good stewards of the environment and people who can be our future leaders.”
Music: “Moonlight Drive” by Yunior Arronte on Bensound | Used with permission
