Minsi Trails Boy Scout Council will sell local real estate to make its contribution to survivor fund

Published March 18, 2022 at 2:04 PM EDT

Boy Scouts statue — In this Feb. 12, 2020, file photo, a statue stands outside the Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Irving, Texas. On Monday, March 14, 2022, more than two years after the BSA sought bankruptcy protection amid an onslaught of child sex abuse lawsuits, a federal bankruptcy judge in Delaware convenes a trial to determine whether to approve the BSA’s reorganization plan. The plan includes a fund of more than $2.6 billion to compensate tens of thousands of men who say they were molested as children by Scout leaders and others. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)

Minsi Trails Boy Scout Council selling properties to pay sex-abuse claims

HANOVER TWP, Pa. - The Minsi Trails Council of the Boy Scouts of America is selling one of its camps in the Poconos to raise money for settling sex abuse claims against the organization.

The 900-acre Trexler Scout Reservation in Monroe County will be closed in 2024 and sold.

The local council will also sell its staff headquarters and Scout Store on Postal Road in Hanover Township, although an exact timetable on that wasn't given.

Minsi Trails CEO and Scout Executive Richard Christ made the announcement Thursday in a letter posted to the council's Facebook page.

He said the Minsi Trails Council is required to contribute $2.6 million to an abuse victims trust that is part of the national Boy Scouts' bankruptcy reorganization -- a reorganization spurred by thousands of child sex-abuse claims.

The abuse victims trust will be established and funded with at least $2.7 billion from the Boy Scouts of America, local councils, insurers and others, according to the letter.

In order to pay the trust and cover other debts and expenses, Christ said, the Minsi Trails Council will refinance its operations with a new $4.5 million loan.

Once Camp Trexler closes, all of the council's camping activities will be consolidated at Camp Minsi, also in Monroe County, Christ said in the letter.

"Consolidating Minsi Trails Council's camp properties has been the most difficult decision our council leadership has ever taken," said Christ, who became the council's CEO in 2019. "This decision has been thoughtfully and thoroughly considered and discussed in order to advance the best interests of current Scouts and the hundreds of thousands of young men and women that Minsi Trails Council will serve in the decades to come.

"While Trexler Scout Reservation holds great memories and represents the best of experiences for many of us, we must look ahead and do what is best for Minsi Trails Council and its future Scouters."

The Minsi Trails Council covers six counties: Lehigh, Northampton, Monroe, Carbon and Luzerne, all in Pennsylvania; and Warren County in northwestern New Jersey.

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