CHENEY -- West Plains Boy Scout Troop No. 356 is selling Christmas trees and wreaths again this year.
"This year business has been great," troop Secretary Kristin Weaver Bowman said. "I was shocked to see how few trees we had after a week of sales."
Bowman said the troop started with 175 Douglas and noble fir trees and 25 wreaths, and were down to 97 trees and three wreaths Tuesday morning in the parking lot at 4 Cheney-Spokane Road.
The trees are distributed from an intermediary in Oregon and each scout gets the opportunity to sign up for work shifts.
"We have an older scout, a younger scout and an adult on each shift." Bowman said, noting that's the way it's been for more than five years.
While she was not able to specify an exact date when the tree sale started, she said, "It started with them cutting down trees, I'm told and then progressed to them ordering trees, and now we are getting trees from Spokane boys each year."
Bowman said the annual tree sale is a Cheney tradition and a lot of community members come back year after year.
According to Bowman, most of the scouts are from the Cheney school district; however, they have a boy from Medical Lake and three boys from Ritzville.
"We have about 15 active boys, give or take, depends on the sports season," she said. "The troop does public service work in Cheney and the surrounding areas, including Turnbull wildlife refuge."
Tree sale proceeds will go toward troop operations such as trailer maintenance, and helping indigent scouts and families. Boys who work the shifts also get a prorated amount towards their camping activities, food or dues.
They can also apply any left-over funds towards their capstone Eagle projects, which is "to lead a leadership opportunity to bring the boy's friends and family together to do something for the community."
She said they have had boys plant trees, renovate church crosses and other community service activities.
"It's lots of fun.," Scout 1st Class Scott Bowman said. "You learn skills, like patience, which is a skill that is important in life. When you join scouts you immerse yourself in a brotherhood or sisterhood in which you must work together to solve problems.
"It helps with leadership skills, and path finding...finding where you want to go in life."
After the Christmas tree sale ends, the boys will be participating in more activities, troop Treasurer Christin Calendine, said.
During the Christmas break, "the boys are going to have a pizza party and work on the trailer," Calendine said.
The troop will also going on a winter competition camp out called Klondike at Camp Poles at Diamond Lake near Newport. "The boys have a refurnished dogsled that they carry gear around in and do competitions like knot tying, cooking and other things that fit with the theme of whatever the camp is doing," Bowman said.
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