OXNARD : Boy Scouts Race Toward Involvement

As 10-year-old Alvaro Mendoza positioned his small blue car on the wooden track, the only thought on his mind was winning.

In the three years he has participated in the in-school Boy Scouts program at Kamala Elementary School in Oxnard, this week’s Pinewood Derby was the highlight.

“The funniest thing I’ve ever done,” Alvaro said of the race while rotating the quarter-size black tires on his hand-painted car.

Scout leaders hope that through an expanding minority outreach program, boys such as Alvaro will have the opportunity to participate in other activities that go beyond their elementaryschool playgrounds.

The Ventura County Agriculture for Scouting Project recently raised more than $20,000 for Boy Scouts in Ventura County, money that Scout leaders have earmarked for the outreach program.

“We would like to expand it to more kids,” said Antonio Garcia, Scout executive for the Oxnard and Port Hueneme districts. “And with this money, maybe it will enable us to.”

Thirty-two companies from the county’s agricultural community recently filled two truckloads of produce for sale on the East Coast. The proceeds went to the Boy Scouts.

Some of the money was used to pay for the materials Alvaro and other boys used to make cars for Kamala’s Pinewood Derby.

Other funds will go toward camping and gang-intervention programs.

Garcia said one of his goals is to get more youths into the Boy Scouts. There are now about 400 Scouts in the Oxnard area, contrasted with about 1,800 in Thousand Oaks, the largest scouting district in Ventura County.

“These kids do much better in school, they attend classes more regularly, they have better character and discipline,” Garcia said of both the regular Boy Scouts program and the in-school program.

The in-school program was designed to involve children in Boy Scouts without them having to pay for uniforms or other fees, which total about $60 a year.

“We provide for those kids who cannot afford the regular Scout troop,” Garcia said. “Many of these kids are low income, many are Latino. They do pretty much everything the Boy Scouts do, they just don’t go camping.”

For 10-year-old Alvaro, that is a crucial difference.

“I would like to go camping,” the boy said. But being a Boy Scout “costs too much money.”

Garcia hopes to change that.

Last week he started what he calls a “uniform bank,” a place where boys can borrow uniforms until they outgrow them.

Only two uniforms have been donated so far, but Garcia is optimistic. He hopes to collect about 100.

He also hopes local businesses will kick in and sponsor Oxnard youths who want to be Scouts.

“Some of these kids, they don’t get rewards,” Garcia said. “And we provide that.”