About Northwest Scouters
The mission of Northwest Scouters is to provide a positive environment for boys and girls through leadership, education, and participation in scouting activities, programs and training.
Northwest Scouters came about from the frustrations that our President and founder, Vince Wanamaker, had when he was working on some projects for his Cub Scout pack. Vince was trying to get donations from a few corporations to support a new project. The corporations would need a tax id number to track their donations. The Church that the pack was chartered by would not allow their tax id number to be used by the Pack. So this limited all donations to companies and individuals where a tax id number was not needed.
In the fall of 2002 Vince had some discussions with Kevin Mason about how to solve the tax id problem. From those discussions the concept of having a non-profit organization and naming it Northwest Scouters materialized. After enlisting the help of a few more individuals Northwest Scouters set out on the task of making themselves known.
During this same timeframe Vince was designing and building a new Pinewood Derby Track. Originally he was building it for his pack but when the pack showed no interest in owning or even maintaining the track he decided that he would donate it to Northwest Scouters as their first piece of equipment that would generate funds for the organization.
Northwest Scouters first showing was to the Sammamish Trails District within Chief Seattle Council. The last district Pinewood Derby that they held was in 2001 and it wasn't much of an event. Typical kids show up pay their five bucks, race their cars and hope to win a ribbon. Vince had a vision that this event could be much larger and more importantly free to all Cub Scout participants.
In 2003 the "New and Improved" District Race was held at Kirkland Pontiac GMC, in Kirkland Washington. Local businesses were invited to build and race their own cars, which provided the funding for the Cub Scout races. With the funding provided by the businesses we were able to provide beautiful trophies for each racing class (Tiger, Wolf, Bear, Webelos) and championship medals similar to Olympic style medals. We had nearly 50 Cub Scouts show up to race their cars, a vast improvement over the race in 2001.
In 2004 we received additional backing from the local businesses and were able to provide over $750 worth of door prizes to the Cub Scouts. This generosity from the businesses has been greatly appreciated and has been recognized by many of the families that frequent these businesses throughout the year.
Although Northwest Scouters started with promoting Cub Scout program we are not stopping there. We are slowly acquiring additional equipment and resources to help all areas of Scouting. In 2003/04 we designed and built equipment for Tomahawk throwing. This equipment has been used at Camporees, Summer Camp, and WashJam 2004.
For 2005 we are making plans to help girls get more active in the outdoors through camping, hiking, and other high adventure activities.