I had an idea the other day for a Boy Scout troop or area council fund raiser - sell firewood! Here are the detials - tell me if I am missing something or you have ideas:
1. Find someone with a acre or two of land willing to rent it to the scouts for cheap as a tax write off - like a $1 a year. If the owner lives nearby and is a wood burner, they could have as much free firewood as they needed as part of the rent.
2. Get all the local tree trimming companies in town to drop their rounds off at this collection / storage site. They could fill out a ticket counting the number of rounds dropped off and it in a drop box. The site would be unmanned but maybe have a fence around it for secuity with a combination paddlock that the tree company guys would know the combo to. There would have to be a rule that rounds be no more than 18" in length thus putting the burden of bucking on the back of the tree guy and limiting the chain saw liability for the scouts.
3. A scout would then tabulate the number of rounds each tree company said they dropped off and then send them a donation statement equating those to a dollar value like $1 per round. This work could count towards a Tax / Computer Merit badge!
4. When enough cords worth of rounds are collected in the summer, the scouts could have a work day or two where older scouts man the powered splitter with adult supervision, and the younger scouts stack the splits onto pallets and then plastic band strap the wood to the pallets. The scouts could rent the splitter at first or get one donated, or they could buy one out of their profits.
5. In the fall, the scouts could take orders for pallets of split firewood based on the number of seasoned pallets of splits in their inventory. Contests and prizes of course for who can sell the most pallets.
6. A couple of adults with trucks and trailers could take a crew of scouts out on a weekend to deliver and stack the firewood at the buyers homes. With all the wood being palleted and strapped, a forklift or farm tractor with forks could be used to load the pallets of firewood into the trucks/trailers saving double handling of de-stacking and loading onto the trucks. Buyers could also be given the option of picking up their wood from the storage site and have scouts help them load it into the buyers own trucks.
I would think the profit potential for selling firewood would be a lot higher than selling popcorn, candy, or Christmas greens. There would be more work involved but it would be good exercise and depending on the location - if it was rural or semi-rural, scouts could even camp out on a weekend of splitting / stacking. While the tree trimming compines would lose out on revenue from selling the firewood themsleves, they could gain a tax deduction by donainting to a non-profit and also get karma points in the community by being seen as donating to the scouts:
Tree guy: "I'll cut your tree down for you for $500 and I'll donate the wood to the Boy Scouts!"
Customer: "You got the job!"
1. Find someone with a acre or two of land willing to rent it to the scouts for cheap as a tax write off - like a $1 a year. If the owner lives nearby and is a wood burner, they could have as much free firewood as they needed as part of the rent.
2. Get all the local tree trimming companies in town to drop their rounds off at this collection / storage site. They could fill out a ticket counting the number of rounds dropped off and it in a drop box. The site would be unmanned but maybe have a fence around it for secuity with a combination paddlock that the tree company guys would know the combo to. There would have to be a rule that rounds be no more than 18" in length thus putting the burden of bucking on the back of the tree guy and limiting the chain saw liability for the scouts.
3. A scout would then tabulate the number of rounds each tree company said they dropped off and then send them a donation statement equating those to a dollar value like $1 per round. This work could count towards a Tax / Computer Merit badge!
4. When enough cords worth of rounds are collected in the summer, the scouts could have a work day or two where older scouts man the powered splitter with adult supervision, and the younger scouts stack the splits onto pallets and then plastic band strap the wood to the pallets. The scouts could rent the splitter at first or get one donated, or they could buy one out of their profits.
5. In the fall, the scouts could take orders for pallets of split firewood based on the number of seasoned pallets of splits in their inventory. Contests and prizes of course for who can sell the most pallets.
6. A couple of adults with trucks and trailers could take a crew of scouts out on a weekend to deliver and stack the firewood at the buyers homes. With all the wood being palleted and strapped, a forklift or farm tractor with forks could be used to load the pallets of firewood into the trucks/trailers saving double handling of de-stacking and loading onto the trucks. Buyers could also be given the option of picking up their wood from the storage site and have scouts help them load it into the buyers own trucks.
I would think the profit potential for selling firewood would be a lot higher than selling popcorn, candy, or Christmas greens. There would be more work involved but it would be good exercise and depending on the location - if it was rural or semi-rural, scouts could even camp out on a weekend of splitting / stacking. While the tree trimming compines would lose out on revenue from selling the firewood themsleves, they could gain a tax deduction by donainting to a non-profit and also get karma points in the community by being seen as donating to the scouts:
Tree guy: "I'll cut your tree down for you for $500 and I'll donate the wood to the Boy Scouts!"
Customer: "You got the job!"
