Our Troop

The National Boy Scouts of America sanctions Aloha Council as this island’s umbrella for the four districts on Oahu. Troop 33 is chartered by the Manoa School APT.

The highest rank of “Eagle” is many boys’ ultimate goal, but education and fun are the true basics of Scouting. All programs focus on the fundamental principle that boys should achieve growth through activities which meet the aims of Scouting: character building, citizenship training, self-reliance, and physical and mental fitness. Troop activities provide opportunities for boys to live the ideals of Scouting, to develop proficiency in outdoor and practical life skills, to explore career possibilities and to gain leadership experience.

The Troop’s code is flexibility, reflecting the fact that its Scouts, ages 10 through 18, function on a variety of maturity and skill levels while managing various academic and personal commitments. While each Scout determines his own pace for rank advancement and designs his own agenda of participation in ongoing activities and skills acquisition, he must also learn to work cooperatively in mixed-age Patrols of six to eight boys and as a member of the Troop.

Our Activities

Although Summer Camp and High Adventure Camp undoubtedly are the premiere events each year, the Troop’s regular itinerary of hikes, camps, and outdoor skills programs provide the basic “training ground” for its Scouts. These programs provide opportunities to master skills such as first aid, orienteering, water safety, hiking, camping, wilderness survival, and pioneering. They also encourage self-reliance, teamwork, and initiative.

The Merit Badge Program comprises another aspect of a boy’s Scouting experience. While specific Merit Badges are required for rank advancement, and do provide skills training, the program essentially encourages each Scout to further pursue his personal interests and to explore new possibilities.

To specifically focus a Scout’s attention on citizenship, each boy is expected to participate in ongoing volunteer service projects on both an individual level and the unit level. Troop 33 Scouts have performed numerous service projects for their chartering school, the local Manoa Valley, and the larger Honolulu community. Troop projects have included service at book fairs, education nights, school grounds beautification days, charity walks, community residential center visitations, church clean-up days, botanical garden clean-up days, zoo fence painting and highway-litter pick-up days. Eagle service projects included recycling bin concrete pad installation, Nature Conservancy irrigation line construction, Tantalus soil erosion tree planting, Ualaka’a Trail koa tree replanting and erosion control, brush and invasive species removal, pathway construction, and planting at Lyon Arboretum.

Our Future

Troop 33 is led and organized by the Scouts themselves. Parent volunteers assist as committee members, leaders, counselors and in all other areas of need, but the Troop survives because each boy assumes increasingly responsible leadership positions within the Troop as he matures. Scouts are given the opportunity to try and try again, to grow, and to learn. It is in this way that Scouting truly affects each community – by developing future leaders within a caring, supportive forum. It is a tradition which Troop 33 has maintained for over 40 years and which it expects to continue well into this millennium.

Scouting’s Bottom Line

What happens to a Scout? For every 100 boys who join Scouting, records indicate that:

• RARELY will one be brought before the juvenile court system
• 3 will become Eagle Scouts
• 17 will become future Scout volunteers
• 12 will have their first contact with a church
• 1 will become an important church leader
• 5 will earn their Duty to God Award
• 18 will develop a hobby that will last through their adult life
• 8 will enter a vocation that was learned through the merit badge system
• 1 will use his Scouting skills to save his own life
• 1 will use his Scouting skills to save the life of another person

Scouting’s alumni record is equally impressive. A recent nationwide survey of high schools revealed the following information:

• 85% of student council presidents were Scouts
• 89% of senior class presidents were Scouts
• 80% of junior class presidents were Scouts
• 75% of school publication editors were Scouts
• 71% of football captains were Scouts

Scouts also account for:

• 64% of Air Force Academy graduates
• 68% of West Point graduates
• 70% of Annapolis graduates
• 72% of Rhodes Scholars
• 85% of F. B. I. Agents
• 26 of the first 29 astronauts
• The pilots of both the Challenger and the Columbia space shuttles were Eagle Scouts (Ellison Onizuka and William McCool)