Cub Scout leader James Delorey writes:
At this year’s Soundview Stroll, Westport Cub Scout Pack 39 asked strollers: “What do you love about Westport?”
If a stroller took a moment to talk with a Cub Scout or Scouter, we asked them to help us discover the places that make Westport special.
We brought them over to a huge map, from the town’s Engineering Department. It includes every road, street, property lot, park, school and geographic feature in town.
Offering 6 different colored markers, we asked people to share: Green for your favorite place to explore nature. Blue for your favorite place to play. Yellow for your favorite place to eat. Purple for a favorite place to walk, bike, or hike. Orange for a place to have fun with your friends. And draw a red heart over “a place that makes you proud of Westport.”
Cub Scouts and strollers at the Soundview Stroll, with their map.
Soundview Strollers of all ages took a moment to orient themselves on the map. In this age of Waze and GPS navigation, we learned that there are many young Westporters who have never looked at a paper map of their town.
Then there were directionally gifted people who thrilled at their fluency with maps, and the chance to help the lost find their way to their favorite places.
Our map came alive with color – dots and red hearts. Runners and bicyclists drew long purple lines for their regular routes. Students drew hearts over their pre-schools and elementary schools, and orange and blue dots over the playgrounds where they play and have fun with their friends.
The Cub Scout map.
Dots for “favorite place” to eat were hungrily drawn for Old Mill Grocery, Bartaco, Casa Me and the Black Duck (one of the most fun spots to find on the map – tracing the Saugatuck River until you’re just under “Interstate 95”).
Longshore, Old Mill Beach (with dots and hearts going all the way out to the sandbar!), Sherwood Island State Park and Burying Hill Beach – Westporters love to get outside.
Intrepid explorers put green dots on the Caryl & Edna Haskins Preserve and the Children’s Natural Playground at Schine Preserve – a couple of Westport’s hidden gems (great places to explore nature).
On our map, Compo Beach is chaotic with color. Multiple blue dots – favorite place to play – were turned into a smiley face by one clever contributor. Red hearts are all over the place (“A place that makes you proud of Westport”).
The Westport Rotary Club’s lobster — aka Rick Benson — chose Compo Beach as his favorite spot, presumably for LobsterFest. The annual event — a favorite of many residents — takes place Saturday.
Our Soundview Stroll map station was really a bit of intelligence gathering. What lights up people’s faces?
Kids love thinking about the places they play, explore nature, and have fun with their friends. Parents loved seeing the places their kids chose, and how they talked about them. The whole exercise was really about starting a conversation.
And we were listening!
==================================================
Tomorrow (Friday, September 18) is “Scouting Day in Westport.” Cub Scouts Pack 39 invites all boys and girls from kindergarten to 5th grade (along with parents and siblings) to join us at Compo’s South Beach (the far end), starting at 5 p.m.
Meet new friends, make s’mores, enjoy a campfire, hunt for crabs.
And, if we’re lucky take in a well-earned sunset!
We’ll try to answer any questions you have about Scouting in Westport. But we want to hear about what you’ve discovered too.
Cub Scout Pack 39 makes s’mores at Compo, last year.
We’ll have our giant town map and our markers. Let’s share what we love about Westport, and the wider world.
Cub Scouts explore nature, play, eat, walk, bike, hike, and have fun with friends. We hope you’ll join us.
(Westport Cub Scout Pack 39 is celebrating its 75th year of Scouting. We welcome all boys and girls, kindergarten through 5th grade. To learn more, click here.
(“06880” regularly covers youth activities in Westport — and all the places mentioned here. If you share our love for this town — and this blog — please click here to support our work. Thank you!)
