Boy Scouts trying to recruit more Latino kids amid changing demographics

Only 4% of the Boy Scouts are Latino and the organization has created a program to recruit these kids. The Scouts are known by all white kids, but not by Latinos and they want to change that. - - Donna Poisl

By DAVID OLSON, The Press-Enterprise

When Phil Velez was growing up in Pico Rivera, his school was overwhelmingly Latino, but almost every Cub Scout and Boy Scout was white.

"We just thought it wasn't for us," Velez said. "There's still an image of the scouts as a middle-class, white organization."

Velez, 33, now an Inland scouting official, is part of a new effort by the Boy Scouts of America to change that perception. The organization has created a Hispanic Initiatives program that aims to double the number of Latino Scouts by the end of 2010, the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.
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