Boy Scout Camporee Comes to Sea Girt [AUDIO]

The Boy Scouts of America will join forces with the New Jersey State Police and the New Jersey Army and Air National Guard to host its fourth Boy Scout Camporee in Monmouth County this weekend.

The event will bring together about 300 troops from all over the Garden State and from parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York and Connecticut. The 10,000 scouts will be encamped in more than 1,000 tents over acres of fields at the New Jersey National Guard Training Facility in Sea Girt.

Activities will include:

• Combined NJ State Police aviation demonstrations from helicopters, including K-9;
• NJ State Police Training Bureau instructors teaching scouts physical fitness, with scouts competing to earn fitness awards for sit-ups, pull-ups and push-ups with the Top Physical Challenge;
• Rock climbing walls, with NJ National Guardsmen assisting scouts;
• NJ National Guardsmen showing scouts how to build emergency shelters;
• Scouts learning how to start fires through friction fire methods;
• National Guard resources on display: two helicopters, a Humvee and a security vehicle, and scouts will also have the chance to see a Howitzer, MK-19 grenade launcher and sniper rifle (no live fire);
• NJ State Police School and Traffic Safety Unit setting up a fatal vision driving course for driving-age scouts to experience;
• NJ State Police static displays: Cyber Crimes, Crime Scene Investigation, Composite Artist Unit, Major Crime Unit and Polygraph Unit;
• Interactions between NJ State Troopers, National Guard and military personnel, and Boy Scouts during numerous activities.

"Aside from the demonstrations and activities, the scouts will get to learn a lot more about careers with the State Police and serving in the National Guard," said Jim Gillick, executive and CEO of the Jersey Shore Council of the Boy Scouts of America. "Badgework and things they will be working on tie into STEM technology, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math."

The theme of this year's Camporee is "Messengers in Peace," which is a global scouting initiative involving scouts in more than 220 countries and territories, in which scouts carry out community service projects that promote peace. The Camporee will be one of the largest events ever held for the global initiative.