Justin Brundin was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1991 to a military family who encouraged him to contribute to society through community service. As a Cub Scout in Copperas Cove, Texas, he responded to the grief of 9/11 by organizing a toy drive for local firefighters, giving them dolls to give to children at the scene of traumatic events such as accidents or fires. In scouting Justin found an outlet to explore the world, earning dozens of merit badges and hiking Philmont with his friends.
When looking for an Eagle Scout Project, Justin was moved by the story of a young Army private who required over 200 units of blood to save his life. He began a project with the Robertson Blood Center at Fort Hood, Texas to create a blood drive that would collect donations that would be sent to combat hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Through this project, he met with mayors, senators, generals, commanders, media figures, and executives to develop and promote a community-wide blood drive. He would go on to host, at the time, the largest blood drive in post-9/11 history. After receiving his Eagle Scout, he continued to run blood drives for several years and was a recipient of the Gold Presidential Volunteer Service Award.
Justin went to college to study geology, one of his big passions since childhood. His studies brought him to groundwater research in the Big Bend, archaeology in Wyoming, ocean experiments in Alabama, and cross-cultural scientific exchanges in Taiwan. Justin went on to serve his Kwapa relatives on the US side at the Cocopah Indian Tribe as a Cultural Resource Manager and emergency response team member.
Justin has diverse interests and hobbies including Amateur Radio (KK7DTE), history, hiking, blacksmithing, horology, mountain biking, traditional crafts, and reading. Justin is excited to return to the Capitol Area Council as an adult leader and quickly started to work with everyone in the North Shore District.
Justin's Goals for North Shore 2023
Hello everyone,
I am extremely excited to get to work with everyone in North Shore this year. I am trying to hit the ground running and have been excited by the energy I have seen with our district leadership, both commissioners and committee members alike. The North Shore District has incredible potential and as we head into this year, I have some shared goals that will help us deliver better scouting for the children across our district:
- Sign up your unit to adopt a school!
- Adopting a school is a great way to build a relationship with the leadership of the schools that your unit serves. This translates to more opportunities to work with schools on recruitment and joint activities.
- Adopting a school helps children understand the importance of caring for their school and serving their community.
- Service projects get your kids in front of the community, showing the public the values scouting imparts on children.
- Projects are up to you and the needs of the school; pick up trash after a sporting event, fix up benches near the waiting area, repaint curbs, etc.
- Learn more at scouting.org/adopt-a-school/
- Nominate a volunteer to join the commissioner corps!
- Commissioners provide valuable service to units as friends, coaches, and counselors of unit leaders.
- Unit commissioners operate quietly, generally in the background. They are effective communicators, providing the resources of the district and council to the units they serve.
- North Shore needs more commissioners, and you can help!
- Sign up to promote scouting!
- Keep up to date with opportunities to promote scouting in the community.
- Join the district membership committee.
- Take time to regularly tell other parents about how much scouting has impacted your children.
- Scouting is BACK! Attend meetings in person this year.
- We all got in the habit of attending meetings online during the first few years of the pandemic, but nothing can replace in-person collaboration and the creative/informative small talk that happens on the sidelines before and after meetings.
- Show up for scouting and together we can all grow as scouters!
- Help start a new unit!
- If your unit is serving more than one school, consider helping form a unit so that each school has its own unit. This will reduce drive times to get kids to scouting and increase engagement.
- If you have experience with starting units, volunteer to help mentor a new unit as it forms.
- Donate to Friends of Scouting!
- The Capitol Area Council spends about $250 per child to provide programming, services, and facilities each year, and Friends of Scouting is one of the most important ways this is funded.
- I am challenging everyone to help show that in the North Shore District, Scouting is BACK! There are three tiers of donation that you can contribute to make this happen:
- $500 – Adopt two scouts and make a world of difference.
- $365 – A dollar-a-day to scouting goes a long way.
- $120 – For the price of two nice coffees a month, you can help make scouting possible for youth in our district and across the council.
- $????.?? – If you can donate more or need to donate less, just know that any donation is tremendously important.
- Registration fees go to national, but your friends of scouting donation stays here in our community. People like you is what made scouting possible for me when I was young. Thanks for your donation!
- Contact Tim Pacl or myself to donate today.
I will leave you with this. North Shore scouting serves 1343 children, teaching them valuable life lessons and values that will shape them into caring, productive, and engaged adults. The North Shore District has 40,714 children in the Leander and Lago Vista ISDs alone, that are not reached by scouting.
Every kid counts.
Building scouting isn’t a number. I urge you to remember that every new kid we reach is another person who grows up understanding the values represented in the scout oath and law. Every kid is a new friend, a new adventure, and a newly planted seed toward building a more connected and caring community.
Thank you for all that you do! If you ever have any questions or ideas, please feel free to contact me.
-Justin Brundin
North Shore District Executive
justin.brundin@gmail.com
928-261-0261
