For a second year, we’ll miss seeing all of our alumni, friends and community supporters at our annual Pancake Breakfast! For nearly 50 years, our Pancake Breakfast has not only been Troop 719's most important fundraiser, it also is a long standing local community event and annual gathering of the Troop 719 family, friends and supporters in the Gardena /Torrance community.

As the global health crisis spread across the country and into our own communities, Troop 719 quickly adjusted its program to ensure the safety of its scout families and surrounding communities. While this resulted in the suspension of our traditional hiking, backpacking and high adventure activities, scouting did not stop at Troop 719. With a quick pivot to virtual settings and executing outdoor and hiking activities separately through family units, our troop continued its focus on the development of our scouts as leaders and rank advancement. During this period, we are proud that three of our scouts advanced to the rank of Eagle, with several more approaching that summit. Our Scouts also took action to support their community through assisting with food drives, toy drives, Halloween candy distribution, coastal clean-ups and other community events. As family units, we continued our tradition of helping local families provide for a Thanksgiving meal and honoring the memory of service members on Memorial Day at Green Hills Memorial Park and VFW Post 1961. One of our scouts was also recently recognized with the BSA Medal of Merit for his service since March 2020 for his role in a bi-weekly streaming program to lead activities for Cub Scout aged children reaching 250,000 views across the nation as all scout units moved to stay at home programs. Scouting did not stop at Troop 719 and we stayed strong by staying together.

With Spring has come new hope for a resumption of our traditional hiking and high adventure activities. We have slowly started to explore small group/patrol outdoor activities as allowed under CDC, Los Angeles County Public Health and GLAAC guidelines.

We continue to plan for the future, consistent with the Scout motto - Be Prepared.

However, with this preparation, has come a stark realization that a second year without our Pancake Breakfast, will deplete our Troop’s financial resources; limiting our ability to quickly resume the traditional hiking and high adventure program that has been a defining feature of Troop 719.

To help bridge the absence of our annual Pancake Breakfast and golf tournament and build our resource base needed to quickly resume our program, we are excited for the opportunity to reconnect with our alumni, friends and supporting community through our first Drive Through Bento Fundraiser with Cherrystones Restaurant! While not quite our traditional fundraiser (and definitely not a replacement for our Pancake Breakfast!), we’re happy to partner with a local business, Cherrystones on this fundraiser that will be held on April 24th and 25th, a weekend traditionally reserved for our Pancake Breakfast!

We’re looking forward to seeing you again! Please support Troop 719 as we resume our high adventure scouting activities! Your action during our fundraiser to purchase a bento plate lunch (donation $25 each) and/or make a donation to the Troop will go a long way toward helping our Scouts quickly resume our high adventure activities and help rebuild the Troop’s reserves. Thank you for your continued support of the Scouts, families and community that is Troop 719!

If you’d like additional information about this fundraiser or about Scouting and Troop 719, please send an email to [email protected] Information about our troop can also be found at our public Shutterfly site: https://troop719boyscouts.shutterfly.com/