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Ashland Scouts carry away Christmas By Nick Morgan Updated: Jan 08, 2023 09:33 AM A A 4 View all photos Ashland Troop 112 Scout Jake Balestreri, 13, places a Christmas tree in a trailer during the troop’s 36th annual tree pick-up service. The event is the troop’s biggest fundraiser of the year. [Andy Atkinson / Mail Tribune] Ashland Troop 112 Scout Kit Metlen, 15, loads a Christmas tree into a trailer during the troop’s annual tree pickup Saturday. The event is the troop’s largest fundraiser of the year. [Andy Atkinson / Mail Tribune] Ashland Troop 112 Scout Kit Metlen, 15, places a Christmas tree and wreath into a trailer in Ashland Saturday. [Andy Atkinson / Mail Tribune] Ashland Troop 112 scoutmaster Kevin Calkins leads a safety meeting with scouts and drivers before picking up Christmas trees throughout Ashland Saturday. [Andy Atkinson / Mail Tribune] High winds couldn’t stop an Ashland Scouting tradition Saturday that’s spanned more than three decades, but it did make the city’s leftover Christmas trees a little harder to spot. Some 27 Scouts BSA troops fueled with cocoa, coffee and doughnuts — not to mention the 34 grownups from community service organizations who were driving them — were instructed to keep their eyes extra peeled for discarded Christmas trees during an 8 a.m. safety briefing just before Ashland Troop 112 fanned out for its 36th annual Christmas tree pickup. “Because of the wind, you won’t know where these trees are coming from,” Scoutmaster Kevin Calkins told the boys and girls in his troop. He added that whoever has the alley behind the Ashland library needs to watch even closer. “Every year, I get multiple calls,” Calkins said to the kids. “It’s the most critical alley in Ashland.” The Scouts BSA troop spent hours Saturday scouring Ashland for Christmas trees and holiday wreaths. “We drive every street in Ashland,” Troop 112 committee chair Brian Runyen said. In part because of the wind, Calkins said he had no idea how many trees would be picked up by the time the troop finished with its cleanup campaign, but somewhere between 900 and 1,100 trees was a starting point. In 2022, the troop picked up 1,027 trees and 134 wreaths, and collected roughly $7,000 in donations, which funds half the cost of their summer camp, according to Calkins and volunteer Brynne McGrath, whose son and daughter were out collecting trees “It’s our biggest fundraiser of the year,” McGrath said. Scouts BSA was known as Boy Scouts of America until February 2019, when the national organization rebranded and opened itself to all genders. Among the female Scouts helping with the fundraiser was Ashland High School senior Magnolia Schnobrich, who achieved the rank of Eagle Scout in October 2021. “I love how the program really shows young people how to be self-sufficient,” Schnobrich said. She’s part of Scouting’s honor society, Order of the Arrow, and last summer attended the National Order of the Arrow Conference in Tennessee. “The main focus is service to others,” Schnobrich said. She said Scouting is a chance to seek out adventure, bond with others and develop her leadership skills. She also said the organization is now “much more accepting” and welcomes LGBTQ people, people from minority groups and people from low-income families. “There is a lot of good change that has been happening,” Schnobrich said. Calkins said female Scouts proved their mettle right away, with more than 1,000 females rising to the rank of Eagle Scout across the country in the first two years. He said many of them had a lot less time than boys to complete their required community projects before they turned 18. “They came in; they kicked butt ... They kind of had to speed-run the program,” Calkins said. Reach web editor Nick Morgan at 541-776-4471 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @MTwebeditor.