Scout leader helped tree collection effort take root

Bob Ellingwood has spent 26 years as a Boy Scout volunteer. He turned the fledgling Christmas tree collection program into a countywide effort. (Zachary Kaufman/The Columbian)

Bob Ellingwood points at Scout Leadership Knots he has earned after more than two decades of participation in Scouting. (Zachary Kaufman/The Columbian)

These days, Clark County residents can take it for granted that Boy Scouts will pick up their tired, desiccated Christmas trees on the first Saturday of the new year.

That’s thanks to Bob Ellingwood, a 64-year-old retired electrical engineer and longtime Boy Scouts volunteer who transformed a faltering troop fundraiser into a successful tradition.

Ellingwood’s scout troop took over the tree recycling effort in 1986 from a troop that tried it for a few years without much luck.

In his first year organizing the event, scouts collected about 1,000 trees in west Vancouver, Ellingwood said. He expanded the event by involving more troops and sponsors; it became countywide in 1993.

The event has come a long way from the days when Ellingwood had to scrounge for chippers and places to take the ground-up trees.

This year, the scouts expect to collect 48,000 trees, said Bill Fickett, who now organizes the event. The scouts receive assistance from Waste Connections, Clark Public Utilities, Clark County, and Columbia Resource Co., while H&H Wood Recyclers takes the chips.

Ellingwood carried off the program with nary a hitch from the get-go, recalled David DiCesare, the former Clark County recycling and solid waste specialist who encouraged the scouts to take the collection countywide.

“Bob was unbelievable in his ability to coordinate this project and work with a very diverse group of players,” DiCesare said. “I called him ‘the commanding general,’ because he would clearly define what everyone’s role would be.”

Before the tree-collection event began, it wasn’t unusual to see trees scattered alongside the road, DiCesare said.

“It was a project that made everyone feel good,” DiCesare said.

He credits the scout tree-collection event with prodding Clark County residents toward more widespread recycling.

“It was their first opportunity to receive an effective, meaningful curbside recycling program,” DiCesare said. “There was no question that the program helped people understand the convenience.”

Ellingwood said it wasn’t so much concern for the environment as service to youth that motivated him.

He first encountered the Boy Scouts of America as a Cub Scout. He participated for a year. He left the organization at age 10 after his father died and his family moved from Everett to Aberdeen.

Scouting re-entered his life when his eldest son came home from the second grade and announced that he wanted to be a Cub Scout. Ellingwood attended an orientation meeting.

“I made excellent eye contact with the floor tiles,” Ellingwood joked.

He ended up serving as a den leader, which launched 26 years as a volunteer. The Boy Scouts awarded Ellingwood the Silver Beaver medal in 1994 for his work on the tree collection program. Now Ellingwood serves as the advancement chairman for the Boy Scouts’ Vancouver district, which involves leading the board that confers the Eagle Scout honor.

The amount raised by the scouts’ tree collection varies from troop to troop, depending on how many trees are collected, how many people leave the suggested $7 donation and how much the troop spends on fuel, Fickett said. For some troops, the tree collection is less a fundraiser than a public service, he said. For others, the collection provides enough money for gear or to subsidize summer camp tuition for boys who would otherwise be unable to afford it.

That’s why the success of the tree collection pleases Ellingwood so much. It fuels the organization to which he has remained so committed, even after his two sons were grown and gone.

“There are youth out there that really need the program and the adult support,” Ellingwood said. “If they don’t have that connection, they can just as easily disappear.”

Erin Middlewood can be reached at 360-735-4541 or erin.middlewood@columbian.com.