Most months bring one den meeting and one pack event. Den meetings are where your child’s grade-level group gets together, usually at Glebe Elementary, to work on badges and just be kids with their friends. Pack events are bigger and pull every den together: camping trips, our rocket launch, hikes around Arlington, and the Pinewood Derby, where scouts race cars they built themselves. We follow the APS school calendar, so meetings pause when school is out.
Camping is a highlight of the year. Cub Scouts get several chances to sleep outside, cook over a fire, and learn skills they will use for the rest of their scouting career. Younger scouts camp with a parent alongside; older scouts start taking on more of the work themselves. The Pinewood Derby is its own kind of tradition: scouts and their families carve, paint, and race small wooden cars, and the pack turns it into a full afternoon event with heats, trophies, and a lot of noise.
We also give back. Scouting for Food is a pack-wide service project each fall, where scouts collect food donations door to door for local families in need. It is usually a scout’s first taste of doing something for the community rather than just for themselves. Campfires close out many of our bigger events, with songs, skits, and s’mores that kids remember for years.
None of this requires your child to have any scouting experience. Every den starts from the beginning for its grade level, and the leaders build the year around fun first.
Each scout wears a Cub Scout field uniform shirt, along with a neckerchief and slide in their den’s color. Shirts, belts, and rank patches are available at the Scout Shop or online through scoutshop.org. Most families buy just the shirt and neckerchief to start; the rest can be added over time. Plan on roughly $40 to $60 for a starter uniform. Pack dues cover your scout’s Pack 116 t-shirt, which is the uniform for most outdoor events.
Registration with Scouting America runs $169.95 for the year: $85 for the national membership fee, $80 for the National Capital Area Council fee, and a $4.95 processing fee. Scout Life magazine is an optional $15 more. On top of that, Pack 116 collects $25 in pack dues, which stays with our families and covers den supplies, rocket kits, awards, and your scout’s pack t-shirt. Uniform pieces are separate.
No family should sit out scouting because of cost. Financial assistance is available: contact the pack at GlebePack116@gmail.com and we will connect you with council resources, no questions asked. Families with a service member on active duty may qualify for a national fee waiver; ask us and we will point you to the right form.
Cub Scouting is built around parents being part of it, not just dropping kids off. Lion (kindergarten) and Tiger (1st grade) scouts each need an adult partner who attends meetings and events with them; this is a core part of how the program works at that age, not an optional extra. As kids move into Wolf, Bear, Webelos, and Arrow of Light, they take on more independence, but parent involvement stays part of what makes the pack run.
We ask every family to pitch in somewhere over the course of the year, whether that is helping run a den meeting, staffing a table at a pack event, or leading part of a campout. We aim for one family, one event: a single event’s worth of help from each family is enough to keep the whole year going, and it means no one family carries the load alone.
Younger and older siblings are welcome at pack events with their family — campouts, campfires, hikes, and the Derby are family affairs. Den meetings are built for the den’s own scouts, so check with the den leader before bringing a sibling along regularly.
Each den communicates with its families through its own channel, set up by the den leader at the start of the year. Pack-wide announcements, the calendar, and anything involving registration or dues come through GlebePack116@gmail.com. If you are ever unsure where to look for something, that inbox is the right place to ask.