The Augusta area Boy Scout Council is getting ready to expand, thanks to an anonymous, charitable donor.
The Georgia-Carolina Council of Boy Scouts of America, whose district is spread across 12 counties in Georgia and four in South Carolina, will be moving to its offices to the location of the former Augusta Jewish Community Center in Evans.
The 26-acre property on Weinberger Way was purchased by a private foundation for the express purpose of offering the Boy Scouts a new facility, says GCC Scout Executive Dan Rogers.
“They heard that the property was going to be sold and then went to look at it,” said Rogers. “They called me and said we could really do some good for scouting in the community at large.”
According to Joe Edge, president of Sherman & Hemstreet Real Estate, the company hired to broker the sale, the property sold for $1.7 million.
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“The property was purchased by two local individuals who requested to remain anonymous, and we want to honor that request,” said Edge, who is also the publisher of The Augusta Press. “Their objective was to provide a permanent home to the Boy Scouts at no cost to the Scouts.”
The Boy Scouts will be under a long-term lease at the site for free, and it will be renamed the GCC Adventure Center. Its 11,000 square foot building holds a 230-seat conference room and a full commercial kitchen. The property also boasts amenities such as tennis and basketball courts, an Olympic-size swimming pool and 20 wooded acres.
The scouts’ current office building on Madeline Drive, off Jimmy Dyess Parkway, is just a little over 4,700 square feet. Rogers notes that the present location makes for good office space but is not amenable to the various activities and programs under way.
Among the plans the GCC has coming up include a partnership with local schools for a team-building and leadership program partner involving science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The new facility will be able to have STEM labs as well as a nearby pond for biological studies and experiments.
The new campus will also have space for the upcoming STEM merit badge, born from a recent partnership with Bechtel Corporation, the engineering company, in which kids learn about electricity and engineering.
“We can run eight weeks of day camp operations, open to the general public to be a service to the community and promote scouting,” said Rogers.
The overall vision for the new adventure center is to get kids excited about scouting, especially considering that membership is currently under 1,400, a decrease Rogers attributes to COVID-19. The GCC has two camps in Georgia, Knox Scout Reservation and Camp Daniel Marshall, both at Clarks Hill Lake. Kids at the other camps can look forward to what the sprawling camp will have to offer.
“We haven’t been able to recruit as much,” said Rogers. “We’re excited about what this property does for us. We can invite parents and kids in to do activities and explore scouting to see if they want to join.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering Columbia County with The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
