Tuesday will be the first day many children will see the new Boy Scout facility in Evans.
Parents will drop off kids for the first day of day camp and the 9 to 11-year-olds will enter a world of scouting, swimming, fishing and canoeing and get to see deer, turtles and birds for the next nine weeks.
The experiences are invaluable. The cost for the Boy Scouts: One dollar.
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That’s how much the scouting organization’s lease costs each year for the modern, 26-acre facility that used to be home to the Jewish Community Center at 4316 3-J Drive off Furys Ferry Drive in Evans. The inexpensive lease is thanks to the philanthropy of the center’s two owners, Vick Mills and Rick Richards.
The two men bought the former Jewish Community Center with the intent of turning it over to the Boy Scouts, said Dan Rogers, the scout executive and CEO of the Boy Scouts of America Georgia-Carolina Council. Rogers moved in with his team the second week of April during Masters week. Less than two months later, the scouts’ store is open with hundreds of merit badges on display along with all the other accoutrements boys and girls need for their uniforms, whether that’s Cub Scout or Eagle Scout. The scouts started accepting girls as members in 2019.
“We want to teach all the different merit badges there are and find experts in the field,” Rogers said.
The 215,000-gallon, 12-foot deep pool is open, the tennis courts and basketball courts are clean and ready and the canoes are lined up and ready to be carried into the center’s pond. The nine-hole disc golf course, where players can throw a flying disc at a net, isn’t yet complete. Neither is the science lab, but Rogers expects to have both of those open soon, too.
When school starts back at the end of summer, Rogers hopes to offer the 11,000-square foot facility to schools in Aiken, Columbia and Richmond counties as a center where students can come on field trips to conduct science experiments and observe and report on nature. For example, scoop up pond water and take it into the lab to look at the microscopic life under a microscope. Or stake out a small plot of soil and observe and write a report on the plant and insect life within that plot.
“We are working with the schools,” Rogers said. “My proposal to them was ‘Tell me what you need, and we will build that.’”
Joshua B. Good is a staff reporter covering Columbia County and military/veterans’ issues for The Augusta Press. Reach him at joshua@theaugustapress.com
