Grant money to help the Council support more than 450 underserved inner city youth
Peoria, Illinois (Sept. 21, 2015) — The W.D. Boyce Council today announced it has received a generous gift of $25,000 from the Caterpillar Foundation to fund the council’s program dedicated to serve central Illinois inner city youth.
“We cannot thank the Caterpillar Foundation enough for this generous gift and their continued support of our Council,” said George Clay II, W.D. Boyce Council scout executive. “This program is an impactful program giving young people positive experiences that can make a real difference in their lives. The grant will help us reach significantly more youth in the region.”
The W.D. Boyce Council gives young people opportunities to join Scouting, regardless of their circumstances, neighborhood or ethnic background. This program aims to stimulate discussion and learn about self-respect, leadership skills, learning the dangers of drug use, ethical values and character, caring skills, citizenship, responsibility and service to others while building self-esteem.
Funds from the grant will help the W. D. Boyce Council provide camping, adventures, knot tying, merit badges, hiking and dozens of other fun activities designed to build strong values and character to inner city youth. An estimated 450 at-risk youth, ages 7-11, who reside in high-poverty areas within Peoria and Tazewell counties will be reached as a result of the Caterpillar Foundation grant.
“The ScoutREACH program embodies the Caterpillar Foundation’s mission to alleviate poverty and place people on a path to prosperity in so many ways,” said Michele Sullivan, President of the Caterpillar Foundation. “Young people who participate in this program will have the opportunity to learn leadership skills that they can carry with them throughout life. Knowing this grant will help create positive change among area youth makes us proud to partner with the W.D. Boyce Council.”
For more information about the W.D. Boyce Council, visit http://www.wdboyce.org.
About the W.D. Boyce Council
The W. D. Boyce Council is the Peoria Office of the Boy Scouts of America located on Madison Avenue near downtown Peoria. The office currently serves over 19,000 youth in 14 counties spread across Central Illinois. The W. D. Boyce Council is divided into five districts – Crossroads, Heartland, Lowenau, and Wotomalo, which all serve their own counties in Central Illinois. ScoutREACH is the council’s fifth district devoted to reaching youth of all circumstances from within the Council.
About the Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America provides the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training, which helps young people be “Prepared. For Life.®” The Scouting organization is composed of nearly 2.4 million youth members between the ages of 7 and 21 and approximately 960,000 volunteers in local councils throughout the United States and its territories. For more information on the Boy Scouts of America, please visit www.scouting.org.
Caterpillar Foundation
Founded in 1952, Caterpillar’s philanthropic organization, the Caterpillar Foundation has contributed more than $600 million to help make sustainable progress possible around the world by providing program support in the areas of environmental sustainability, access to education and basic human needs. To learn more about the global impact of the Caterpillar Foundation, please visit www.caterpillarfoundation.org.