LAWRENCE, Mass., Aug. 13 (UPI) -- The Boy Scouts of America recently tapped into a new vein of American youth, launching programs in Latino communities across the nation.
With national enrollment down nearly 10 percent since 1998, the Boy Scouts looked to Latino communities to help reverse their plummeting numbers and the new source seems to be working, The Boston Globe reported Monday.
Boy Scout officials say they have no real reliable national data on how well the effort is going, but in Framingham, Lawrence, and other communities in Massachusetts, the results can easily be seen. Framingham has had enrollment jump by about 150 children, most of them Brazilian, and in Lawrence, enrollment has almost quadrupled.
Over the past two years, Latino membership in scouting programs in Lawrence has gone from 53 to 250, primarily due to volunteer efforts, the Globe said.
