Gathering Supplies for Projects and Activities

After I volunteered to be den leader, I was planning out my first couple meetings and it suddenly occurred to me exactly how many materials I would need to provide.  Because my family and I are on a pretty tight budget, that means I can't just run out to the craft store, teacher supply store, or home improvement store every time I needed something.  So I've had to get inventive in gathering supplies for our projects and activities.  Here the things  I've done.

1) "Shop" my own house.  I used to homeschool my son and still have school materials left over.  Mostly I have craft supplies and since my den is so small, if I have what I need, I usually have enough for all three boys.

2) Recycle and Reuse. When we made the bean bag toss, I grabbed a box from a case of paper at work.  The lid worked well as a target.  We traced around a paper plate leftover from a party to make the holes.  We have used shoe boxes, toilet paper tubes, water bottles, and bottle caps for other projects.

3) Ask for donations.  In the spring we're going to make boats from wine corks.  None of our families drink enough wine to get enough corks between now and then, so I went to a new restaurant near our meeting place and asked for a donation of corks.  They gladly gave me a big paper bag full of corks after just one week of collecting them for me.  In fact so far, the only place that has not given us a donation when asked is our local newspaper.  I wanted 3 back issues for our time capsule project and was turned down.  I find asking for donations goes much easier if I bring along a Scout in his uniform.

4) Ask other den leaders or even leaders from other organizations for leftovers.  One of our den leaders has been involved in Boy Scouting his entire life.  He has several larger items that he loans out.  Another has two boys in scouting and has a little bit of this and a little bit of that I can usually cobble together for 3 boys.  My best friend works for the local Girl Scout council.  She's given me lots of leftovers from camps and council wide activities.  Some things, she's had in storage for years, so this helps her thin out things that aren't being used.

5) See what kinds of materials the pack has available.  Our pack has glue, scissors, markers, construction paper, plain paper, and paper towels.  We also have larger items like tents, a fire pit, and extra American and state flags. When we did our unit on flags, my Scoutmaster dug up enough flags for each boy to have a turn learning out to fold a flag.  We also had a large state flag to look at closely and discuss.

6) Shop clearance sales.  I found a cute, quick fall craft on a Halloween clearance table for 75% off, which meant I had a complete craft for 90 cents.  When we finished up an activity sooner than I expected, we made them as a time filler one night before Thanksgiving.  I'm already shopping for Christmas items for next year.  At back to school time I was able to pick up a few things we might be able to use later for super cheap.

7) Ask your Scouts' parents.  I need film canisters, bendy straws, Popsicle sticks, and large matchboxes for future projects.  Both of my other Scouts' parents are eager to help, so I put together a list of things they could search around for or start collecting for me.

8) "Shop" your friends and neighbors.  My mother in law gave me shoe boxes, and my mom gave me large peanut containers (not sure what I'm going to do with them yet).  When looking for some scrap wood for a recipe holder (Wolf Requirement 5e, Wolf Elective 3a), I talked to my neighbor who was building a new deck.  Not only did he give me the scrap wood, he cut it all to spec for me.