JORDAN — Last month, the proprietor of a Jordan coffee shop raised some money for local Cub Scouts with a drone giveaway.
Ernest Hamm, who runs the Clinton Street Cafe, decided to hand the controls of the remotely piloted aircraft over to the person who guessed closest to the amount of coffee beans contained in the urn by the cafe’s entrance.
People who stopped in were encouraged to make an unlimited number of estimates.
A slip of paper with their name, their guess and their contact information was then stapled to the required $1 contest entry fee and dropped into a separate jar.
Altogether $36 were donated to Cub Scout Pack 102 from the Jordan-Elbridge area.
Though the fundraising amount was lower than expected, the Cub Scout pack was still able to put the money toward a Christmas party.
At the Christmas party its members drank hot chocolate, made ornaments for senior citizens, decorated the community Christmas tree and handed out cars for the pack’s Pinewood Derby taking place in March.
Jeremiah Jaeger, the pack’s bear den leader and spokesman, said the Cub Scout program gets kids outdoors and momentarily away from electronics while teaching them about fire building, proper campsite selection, the checklist for essentials to bring on a hike, and the safe use of pocket knives.
The recreational drone given away was a quadcopter equipped with a camera designed for aerial photography and video recording.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allows such drones to fly as high as 400 feet, but Hamm recommends keeping them at an elevation below 125 feet so that they remain visible to the person at the helm.
According to Hamm, himself an FAA-certified drone pilot, the aircraft’s flight time hovers around 21 or 22 minutes.
The winner of the contest was the pack’s own Liam Howell, who put in a guess for 20,000 beans, the actual number being 22,560.
The coffee shop owner intends to hold another, similar fundraiser in the spring to benefit the community’s Boy Scouts troop.
The Clinton Street Cafe is located at 2 Clinton St. in Jordan.
The cafe is closed on Tuesdays, but it stays open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. every remaining day of the week.
