Local Boy Scouts could miss camp from Christmas tree scarcity

With a lack of Christmas trees available to some Fort Myers Boy Scouts, they won’t be able to raise the money they had hoped to this holiday season — money they needed to go to summer camp.

Boy Scout Troop 119 said its supplier ran out of Christmas trees completely, and area farms didn’t have any available either.

Troop 119 sells the holiday trees annually to raise money to send the scouts to camp.

A member of the troop said it is upsetting and goes beyond a monetary loss for them.

“It’s really hard on the whole troop just because we use all the money that we get from the Christmas trees to go to summer camp,” Nick Hodges. “It funds it all.”

Peter Boldrin, troop committee chair, said there is a lesson the scouts are learning from this experience.

“More importantly it really reinforces the value of work,” Boldrin said. “It reinforces work ethic in teaching boys that you know when you work hard there are fruits for that labor.”

Boldrin said the troop will have to come up with new ways to fund raise for summer camp. He said the troop typically raises $15,000 from tree sales, enough to send the entire troop to summer camp.