BSA sees sudden spike in interest from Masonic lodges

Irving, TX - Community Services staff at the Boy Scouts of America offices have been overwhelmed with requests for information about sponsoring Eagle Scouts and other groups after a post from the Freemasons for Dummies blog showcased an Eagle Scout who replaced the dilapidated lodge sign with something more modern.

"Look at this inbox, there must be six or seven hundred emails here that we haven't even read, let alone the several hundred we've already answered this week," said Jared Morales, BSA Community Services Coordinator. "Plus dozens of actual letters. I've stopped even checking my voicemails."

Morales explained to The Past Bastard that since the November article, lodges from all over the US have been asking how they could get Eagle scouts to repair or renovate features in those lodges. "Some lodges wanted new signs like in that Dummies article, but others are asking for things like interior or exterior painting, fixing the roof, new landscaping, replacement windows... no, I'm not joking." He pulled out an email marked up with highlighter. "Look, this lodge is asking for an Eagle Scout to replace their furnace. It's crazy."

The Past Bastard contacted some of the lodges sending in the requests.

"Well, we thought that replacing a sign was a poor choice," said WB Jason Hodor, Secretary at St Elmo's Lodge in Hampstead, Oklahoma. "Sure, it looks pretty, but our buildings need some real work. That's why we asked about sponsoring a Scout to maybe get some of his buddies and replace the north side of our roof. It's been leaking in heavy rains last couple of years, and we thought it best to do something now before it gets worse."

The Past Bastard asked why the lodge members don't repair the roof themselves, or hire a local contractor.

"What, do guys think we have King Solomon's treasury or something? That kind of thing takes money, and we're barely getting by on the $55 a year dues; we don't have much extra for things like the roof."

"We don't need an Eagle Scout project," said WB Mick Mickerson, Treasurer of North Fork lodge in South Bend, Indiana. "We were really just looking for kids to mow the lawn regularly, and maybe do some weeding and trimming. The DeMolay boys used to do that for us, but after the chapter closed, nobody's been around to do that for us."

The Past Bastard asked if anyone had contacted the high school or Craigs List to see if anyone wants to pick up a few dollars for mowing the lawn."

"What, you mean, pay them?" asked Mickerson. "We didn't pay the DeMolay boys, so we really hadn't considered going that far."

"We've got a good project lined up, if we could find some young scouter kid who's not too lazy," said RWB Jake Rapper, Secretary at Beehive Lodge in Apian, North Carolina. "The summers get pretty hot and humid here, and it's making the paint come off the building. We could really use a good Eagle Scout to paint the exterior, maybe scrape some of the loose paint, do some caulking around the windows. You know, to fix the place up a bit."

The Past Bastard mentioned to RWB Rapper that, from the pictures, the lodge would need a lot of paint.

"Oh, that's no problem," Rapper explained. "All of us got some some extra paint from the times we did our own houses. We figured the kid could, you know, just combine them all and we should have about enough. We tried it a couple of years ago as a test, and it comes out a grayish brown color. It's stylish, and we'd save hundreds of dollars that way."

Coordinator Morales told us that while he was happy so many lodges were showing a renewed interest in the Boy Scouts, he was concerned that they were just looking for free labor.

"I don't know much about the Masons, frankly. I used to think that they were mainly rich, old guys, so I'm mystified as to why none of these lodges seem to have enough money to pay for maintenance and upkeep. All they want to do is to get free labor for things they could have probably paid for themselves if they had enough foresight to put a few bucks away every year. "