Boy Scouts to rebrand as Scouting America in historic change

A big shift for the Boy Scouts of America. The organization said it’s changing its name for the first time in its 114-year history and will become Scouting America starting next year.

The move comes as the organization emerges from bankruptcy following a flood of sexual abuse claims.

The youth organization said the change is meant to make everyone feel welcome.

“I think this as a huge step forward,” Jimmie Moore, a Boy Scouts unit commissioner, said.

Steps that included accepting girls into the program five years ago. The organization said there are currently about a million scouts with about 176,000 girls.

Moore said the core traits of the program remain intact.

“We promote citizenship and kindness towards others,” he said.

The name change comes as the organization pays out $2.4 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims of sex abuse. The resulting bankruptcy caused the organization to sell camps like Killingworth’s Deer Lake to fund the settlement.

The Boy Scouts said it has taken steps to keep kids safe.

“We've worked with national experts in this youth safety field to ensure that we have procedures and protocols in place to keep youth people, young people safe in every element of our program,” Bob Brown with the Connecticut Yankee Council of Scouting America said.

State Representative Pat Boyd, an Eagle Scout who remains involved with scouting, said the program remains strong in Connecticut and will continue to grow.

He said the name change shows the skills learned in scouting can apply to any child.

“At the end of the day, we need more scouts. It teaches leadership development, outdoor skills, self-reliance -- all these things that particularly post-COVID we say that youth need to be more engaged and the scouting's one of the best programs to teach leadership in the country,” he said.

The name change will be official next year in February when the organization celebrates its 115th anniversary.