Boy Scouts collect donations at Baja event

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Christopher Brown

Race teams did more than compete at the Baja SAE Rochester off road race competition. Their donations of food and personal items, collected at the June event by Boy Scouts of Troop 7, will help the community and Rush-Henrietta Area Food Terminal.

Scouts collected more than 40 bags of food, including a case of Spaghetti-O’s, oatmeal and other canned goods as well as personal care items, from the 100 collegiate teams competing at the Baja event held at RIT and at Hogback Hill in Palmyra June 9-12.

The 14 scouts, ages 11-16, had done this type of community service before, in their region and at the event, said Christopher Brown, assistant scoutmaster who has been involved with the Scout troop for 10 years. In addition to helping the Scouts coordinate the team donations, he and the group sold snacks and beverages as part of a troop fundraiser and camped at the motocross site, shadowing security personnel watching cars and equipment overnight.

“This is everything scouting—the Scouts participated in community service, had a chance to experience fundraising, education, technology. And they loved seeing the cars and the competition. The best thing for me is watching the Scouts learn from these great experiences,” said Brown, who also is systems administrator and lab manager in RIT’s College of Applied Science and Technology. He managed on-site parking and transportation for the Baja SAE event. RIT has hosted the international racing event every third year for nearly 20 years. Brown also volunteers as a mentor to Manchester-Shortsville’s FIRST Robotics team and is in the process of starting a competitive university robotics team at RIT.

The Rush-Henrietta Area Food Terminal, a member of Foodlink’s coalition of emergency food cupboards in the region, provided support to 148 families in just the first five months of the year, according to organization leaders.