Scouts' coin campaign nets $1,500 for Naperville foster program

One of their mantras is to always be prepared, but some Naperville Scout leaders and an area foster care program weren't ready for the fundraising abilities of 60 Cub Scouts.

Initially, Pack 503's holiday fundraising plan was to collect enough coins to fill Christmas wish lists for three of the nearly 200 foster children overseen by Our Children's Homestead in Naperville. After the first week, the group had collected $95 as part of what had been dubbed by leaders as the "Spare Change Challenge."

"Then we decided to give them another incentive to match whatever total they came up with after another four weeks," said Doug Walgren, committee chairman for the pack's fundraising effort. "We reminded them to dig deep and thought we'd get a repeat of that $95."

Last week, a bank-style coin-counting machine was brought to the pack meeting to facilitate the grand reveal and Walgren said everyone was surprised when the coins amounted to $686.62. Combined with the original $95, the Scouts had collected $782.26.

Pack leaders matched what the Scouts collected and recently handed over a check to Our Children's Homestead for $1,564.52 - enough to fill holiday wish lists for 30 foster kids.

"It's been tough with the economy," said Kirstin Samp, a spokeswoman for the foster care program. "But with our board members and acts of kindness like this, our agency won't have to pay for one gift for a child this year."

Samp said the agency receives 89 percent of its funding from the state and officials have to make those dollars stretch more than ever because there's a threat of funding cuts.

The group handles foster care placement for some of the region's toughest cases. Most of the children the agency works with have severe health care needs. Samp said 90 percent of the children placed by the agency are on psychotropic medications and the average child has been placed in 13 homes.

"The children we deal with are so tough they need extra services beyond what the state can provide," she said. "These are kids with severe behavioral problems or medical disorders."

Walgren said Our Children's Homestead was chosen because one of the parents had worked with the group and knew of its needs. In recent years, the pack's holiday activities included collecting toys for the Marine Corps' Toys for Tots campaign.

Walgren said he didn't know how the children - who are all first- through fifth-grade students at Prairie Elementary School in Naperville - would respond to the new campaign.

"This far exceeded anyone's expectations," he said. "We kind of thought we'd get handfuls of coins and what ended up showing up at the meeting were kids bringing in gallon-sized Ziploc bags; the freezer kind, not the sandwich bags."

Scouts looked in couches, scoured beneath car seats and floor mats and some even went with their parents to work and hit up coffee drinkers for loose change, Walgren said.

When all the coins were taken to a bank to be deposited, Walgren learned another surprising piece of trivia.

"The total weight that came from the bank was more than 80 pounds of coins," he said. "We maybe have one or two Scouts that weigh more than those coins."