Cub Scout Pack launches in Waterleigh Village

After holding its first official pack meeting Dec. 4, Cub Scout Pack 429 has officially joined the ranks of West Orange and Southwest Orange scouts. 

“After about a month and a half of recruiting at our three primary schools —  Atwater Bay, Panther Lake and Water Spring elementary schools — we finally had our charter recognized at the end of November,” Pack 429 Cubmaster Dave Puig said. 

“From there, we had a welcome-to-the-pack meeting on Nov. 20, and that was more of an orientation-type meeting. It was our Dec. 4 meeting that was our big blowout event where we brought all the kids in, played games and just had a great time.”

Aptly numbered, Pack 429 will serve the Waterleigh community of Horizon West — recruiting K-5 students from elementary schools west of State Road 429. The new pack, led by Puig, meets at 6 p.m. on the first, third and fourth Wednesday of each month in Atwater Bay Elementary School’s cafeteria. 

“As most locals know, Horizon West is one of the fastest-growing regions in Florida,” Puig said. “But prior to starting Pack 429, only one Cub Scout Pack was serving this entire area — Pack 5, which pulled students from Summerlake Elementary, Independence Elementary, Hamlin Elementary, Water Spring Elementary and Panther Lake, as well. We ended up with (more than) 100 kids in that pack, which isn’t ideal. A pack is only designed to have 50 or fewer kids in it and when you get that large, you really lose the ability to focus on the intent of cub scouting, which is to help every scout and their families to be engaged with the values that scouting is about: character, leadership, personal fitness and citizenship.”

Puig is excited about the new pack and its ability to fill various needs within the Waterleigh community, which he felt was being underserved. 

“We’re an inclusive pack that’ll take any kid interested in meeting at the time and place we meet, but when it comes to our recruiting efforts, those three schools — Atwater Bay, Panther Lake and Water Spring — are where we felt we need to put our focus,” Puig said. “We really felt that those three schools were being underserved, especially when you consider the fact that we have a large Brazilian community here. Having our own pack here that focuses solely on this area allows us to tailor how we serve our scouts and families in the way they need us to, like having quite a few Portuguese-speaking leaders in the unit.”

So far, everything is going to plan with the young pack, and Puig can already see the mission of the Cub Scouts taking effect in the Waterleigh community. 

“Cub scouting is focused on living the ideals and values embedded in the Scout Oath, Scout Law and motto,” he said. “So for us, as a brand-new pack of 32 energetic kids and families who have joined us, everything that we do is about instilling those values of the oath and the law back into not only the school but also the community. The idea is that we want kids to have a sense of belonging to their small den organization that involves both the scouts and their families, which, in turn, serves to impact the home and really the whole neighborhood with different service projects. … We’ve already been involved with various service projects (such as) Scouting for Food, Toys for Tots, and we even had some Cub Scouts go out at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery to participate in a Wreaths Across America event, where they lay wreaths on the gravesites of veterans to honor their service and sacrifice.”