Scout Troop Looking for Mentors

My name is Larry Love and I am a Scoutmaster for Troop 987 which consists of Inner-City, Underprivileged, Hispanic youth.

Our goal with these boys is to introduce them to role models that are Hispanic Professionals to give them hope in the future. We are trying to find Lawyers, Doctors and other Professionals that are Hispanic to help us with these career goals in the next year. We are planning several activities where we would like to have the boys meet Professionals in different industries. Some of those Professionals hopefully will allow us to visit their work places.

If you feel you may have something to offer in way of career mentoring or if you can give us some references to Hispanic Professionals that may be able to spend an hour or two with the boys we would appreciate it.

Most of these boys are from broken families. The majority speak Spanish at home and most all of them speak English since they are in school. One of the boys has refused to attend school and is now under court order to attend. There is history of violence in some of the homes. The area around 500 South 1170 West has a high gang influence and it is difficult for us to get some of the boys to attend. We have visited many of the boys homes and taken information to their parents in Spanish. I speak fluent Spanish and try to meet with parents on a regular basis.

In the last year we have worked on Scouting, Had First Aid classes, Budget class, Auto repair, gone to winter camp and spring camping, Cooking class, Bike Rides, Swimming, Movies, started an ongoing Karate Class on Sat, gone Rifle shooting, had class on fire safety and fire starting, toured the Catholic Cathedral, The Muslim Mosque. We try to have meaningful activities to help these boys move forward in their life although getting them to attend is difficult.

We have taken them to the Police Dispatch center and the Fire Department and at both locations the person giving the tour went over the following items:

• What type of duties they would be performing and what skills they would need
• What they could do to prepare now for such a position (stay out of trouble, take special classes etc....)
• Education needed to apply for the position
• Starting Pay and what they can work up to
• Starting and Ongoing Physical Requirements such as tests - Pushups, Running etc.....

We do activities such as camping although at times it is hard to come up with the money to take the boys on these activities. Michael Clara is a Scoutmaster helping the older boys and he is running for city counsel and if he wins he will not be able to do both activities. He has helped several boys to the point of getting their Eagle Scout. Recently he was involved helping JR Cruz rename 300 South "Adam Galvez" street after a Hispanic war Hero. The GOV attended this as well as many other important people. We are very proud of Jr Cruz and Michael Clara. If I am not mistaken I believe you were in attendance at this meeting. I feel with your help we could give these boys hope in the future and help them choose a better direction for their lives. I have been working with boys that are ages 11 to 15.

The tours we took of the Muslim Mosques were not career oriented although we asked all the hard questions and I wanted the boys to understand about diversity and other cultures. Interesting enough we encounter forms of paradigms where you may not expect it and with education we feel our society can become more accepting and understanding. On both tours we took, the boys were able to interact and learn about other beliefs. We appreciate any help you can give us.

We normally meet either Wed or Thur at 6:30 but if you need we could arrange a meeting for Sat or Sun at night. We would like to include the parents and possibly the boys sisters as well so 7PM may be a better time for these meetings so the parents could attend. I would like your thoughts on this since the meeting would be held in Spanish. All the boys speak Spanish although I feel when you address the boys themselves English might be more appropriate. Although they all speak Spanish it seems that their level of understanding and ability to speak is limited to certain subject matter and a limited vocabulary. I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Larry Love
Scoutmaster Troop 987

We meet at 500 South and Emery Street 1170 West SLC, Utah 84104

Wk (801) 263 6002 Fax (801) 293 0210
Cell (801) 898 6003
love@americansecurity-firecom
larrylove@hotmail.com