Local Scout Earns 42 Merit Badges During COVID-19
By David Streich
Everyone knows that a Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
But one Mount Kisco Boy Scout has also been very busy.
At the recent Court of Honor ceremony for Troop 1, Eliot Cape received his rewards for what he has been working toward for the past 18 months – 42 merit badges, which were practically overflowing in his hands.
In a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has kept people apart, Cape has taken the opportunity to learn as much as he can about a variety of interests, from archeology to woodcarving, among many other activities.
His drive started when he visited the Scouting Store to buy his first uniform after joining Troop 1. There, he saw a wall of 138 colorful merit badges that the Boy Scouts of America offer.
“At that point, he was hooked,” his mother, Alison Cape, said.
Eliot found an online registry of scouts who have earned every merit badge available, starting in 1914, when there were only 57 badges. He wanted to be on that list.
One of the first badges Cape achieved was Reptiles and Amphibians, because he has a pet bearded dragon. One thing that he learned was how snakes propel themselves, and why they do so in an S shape.
What Cape wasn’t counting on was that his pet would also be his muse for the Inventing badge. He found that the reptile’s vegetables would get soggy under the heat lamp, so he designed and built a structure that kept the food cool and moist. After several iterations of prototypes, Cape finally made the structural integrity perfect. Badge achieved!
Cape’s choices sent him to activities that he would not have sought out, including dyeing fabric with vegetables for the Textiles badge, making paper for the Pulp and Paper badge and learning to make beaded bracelets for the Native American Lore badge. He even accomplished the Basketry badge. “Basket weaving was more challenging than you might think,” Cape said. “As you bend the reeds, you have to hold it all together, and it always feels like you need another hand that you don’t have.”
During COVID-19, some badges could not be accomplished at all, like Camping or Scuba, so Eliot needed to think outside the box – or rather, inside the Zoom box. There were more opportunities as nationwide merit badge counselors donated their time to guide scouts online from as far away as Hawaii.
The badge for Architecture included a unique tour through an abandoned prison in Pennsylvania, which was converted into a museum. A St. Louis woman discovered that her passion, landscape architecture, was one of the least-earned badges and made it her mission to turn that around. Cape is one of 450 of her students who earned that badge.
While Cape was unable to visit his grandmother in person, she taught him brush technique and color theory over Zoom as he created the same image in four different mediums, helping him earn his Art badge.
The scouting roots in Cape’s family-run deep, as his great-grandfather was at the first World Jamboree in the United Kingdom in 1929, and he was able to compare his great-grandfather’s leather-bound book to his own hand-made pocket knife satchel for his Leatherwork badge.
Some badges can take months of collecting information and doing consistent work.
“It’s a great lesson for kids,” noted Alison Cape, who also enjoyed working on the activities with her son.
For the Game Design badge, they created a timely board game with 3D printed tokens including toilet paper rolls, cans of beans and shopping bags. If your piece got too close to another, you flip it over to see if they were infected, and roll a die to determine if they were wearing a mask. Once the game was fully designed, Cape used it as a way to earn his Entrepreneurship badge.
So what’s next for Cape on his way to filling every inch of his sash with badges? Troop 1 scouts are collectively working on Cooking badges (as well as doing a good deed service project), by preparing breakfasts and dinners for the local Emergency Shelter Partnership, a coalition of interfaith congregations to provide the area homeless with a place to stay overnight during the winter in Mount Kisco and neighboring communities.
In 2023, Troop 1 will celebrate its 100th year of scouting in Mount Kisco. It holds meetings in person each Thursday from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Mount Kisco United Methodist Church. Everyone from 11 to 17 years old is invited to come with their parents to find out how scouting can enrich their lives.
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