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Question |
My son came home with a grocery list and some money. What are we supposed to do with those? |
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Answer |
Our troop employs “patrol cooking” on campouts. Your son is one member of a “patrol” that includes a group of boys. When we camp, the patrol is responsible for cooking its own meals.
The grocery list your son has come home with is the result of a meal plan for the campout that the patrol put together. To give each boy both the opportunity and the responsibility to shop for a campout, the task of shopping for groceries is assigned to different patrol members for each campout.
Troop 44 believes that the responsibility to shop is your son’s, not yours. Obviously, your son will need to be driven to the grocery store; and obviously, your son may have plenty of questions for you during the experience, since most of our boys do not do the family grocery shopping.
Your responsibility is to act as a guide. If your son wants to buy three dozen eggs to cook a single breakfast for his patrol of 5 scouts, we would encourage you to ask some leading questions to help your son determine how many eggs may be reasonable for the campout. The goal is to teach your son the skills that are required to shop smartly, and to be able to keep within a budget.
The following are examples of the types of shopping skills we would like you to suggest as you help your son with the shopping task:
· Purchase store brands, when available, to make the budget go further
· Bring a calculator or a pencil and paper to keep track of total cost while shopping
· Stick to the grocery list—don’t impulse buy additional items
· Purchase smaller portions when larger portions are not required (e.g. smaller loaf of bread, rather than a full loaf)
· Ensure that you have all required ingredients for any mixes you buy (e.g. tomato paste for Sloppy Joe mix or milk/eggs for muffin mix)
· For lunch meats, order by the slice, rather than by the pound (e.g. 2 slices per scout)
The money your son has represents a budget of $8 per scout. The goal is to purchase adequate food for the campout and stay within that budget. The menu planner/grocery list that your son has identifies how many scouts in his patrol will be attending the campout, and your son should use that in calculating food portions and total budget.
It is conceivable that a campout will occasionally go over budget (e.g. if the patrol is trying to cook something “fancier” than usual). When this does occur, the cost should be kept as close to $8 per scout as possible.
When the shopping is complete, your son has just a few more responsibilities:
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