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Boy Scouts Plot Routes for Christmas Tree Pickup

October 16, 2017
Christmas Tree Pickup

After the holiday decorations come down, Boy Scouts all across the United States begin their annual Christmas tree pick-up service.
In Concord, Massachusetts, the event is Troop 132’s only fundraiser of the year. For a small donation, the scouts pick up trees from more than 600 addresses, and drop them at recycling stations around town.
“We used to do the routing by hand, which was painful and problematic,” explained Robert Zuffante the troop’s advancement coordinator and a scout dad. “I figured there must be some software out there to do this routing task.”
The troop needed software that was both easy and affordable.
“I found 3 different websites that offer routing services and evaluated all three,” Robert said. “By far, MyRouteOnline won. It was much easier to use, more forgiving, and had a price tag we could afford.”
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Ease of use was extremely important

“It’s astounding actually what MyRouteOnline.com offers at its price compared to the much harder to use and more expensive corporate-targeted software out there,” Robert said. “Very seldom do I have high praise for software as I am a bit of an ease-of-use, don’t-bog-me-down critic of software. I find this software fun to use.”
“Rather than my having to fight to get the software to cooperate, which is often the case which software designed to solve complex problems, the software educates us about our address accuracy in a very forgiving way,” he continued.
Robert and the scouts typically plan more than 20 routes in January to pick up trees. They rent eight trucks to haul the trees. It’s a complicated process, and MyRouteOnline.com has made a huge difference.
“Once the initial routes are created, it is very easy to add, delete and change addresses as well as redistribute addresses to different routes that suit our needs,” Robert said. “Because we have a home base and a dump point, the options to set start addresses and adhere to territories are very useful.”

Plus, the routes are far more efficient and easier to follow

“It’s astounding actually what MyRouteOnline offers at its price compared to the much harder to use and more expensive corporate-targeted software out there,” Robert said.
The troop plans to use MyRouteOnline.com next year, and recommends it to other troops who do similar fundraisers.
“Now we not only get nice clean ordered lists of pick-up addresses, we also get maps and can print one route at a time, or multiple routes as an overview,” Robert said. “The pickup teams are very happy with the results!”
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