They stand outside in the rain, sleet or glaring sunlight, and patiently let the tourists that flock to downtown Rapid City hang all over them while taking photos, leaving tokens of appreciation nearby or writing on them.

They do it without complaint, but by the end of the weekend, the presidential statues on the corners downtown must be feeling pretty grimy.

Good thing Rapid City Cub Scout Pack 74 and Boy Scout Troop 1178 are around to help clean them up each week.

According to Rodney Brown, Pack 74 cub master, the scouts began cleaning the statues a few weeks ago after he was approached by a church member who wanted to know if the scouts were interested in a service project.

Previously, the statues had been cleaned by an alumni association.

Brown said the statue cleaning helps "build character" for about 18 second- to fourth-grade boys in the pack and teaches them about the importance of volunteering.

"We're teaching the scouts that everybody is a leader, and that we're volunteers," he said.

Each week, the troop meets downtown to clean the 36 statues. The group sets up a schedule, and each boy can stay as long as he wants, Brown said.

Each statue takes about a half-hour to clean, longer if their design is intricate, Brown said. The scouts wash, dry and wax the statues.

"The boys kind of enjoy it," Brown said. "They wash them real good, and then start rubbing them off."

Brown said there hasn't been anything too hard to clean off the statues since they started, just the "general graffiti stuff." He said they had to wipe off a swastika, among other painted symbols, off one presidential statue.

"If it's got some paint on it, got to put some elbow grease to it to rub it off," he said.

Cleaning the statues has been interesting, said Brown, whose two sons are helping clean the statues.

"It's a good time as a parent and Scouts to work on something together," he said. "We spend a little time together, and they get to spend time with their friends in the pack and the troop."

In anticipation of the Festival of Presidents this weekend, Brown and the Scouts were out last week with their buckets and rags so the statues would be squeaky clean for their photo ops in the coming days.

Dallerie Davis, co-founder of the City of Presidents, said people's interaction is the "real joy" of the statues.

"We've had a lot of interaction," Davis said. "Locally, on D-Day, someone always puts flowers on Eisenhower's statue, almost on annual basis. Jimmy Carter is always used as a meeting place, and when Ronald Regan passed away, people left tons of jelly beans there. They used it as a way to express their feelings."

What began as a downtown economic development plan disguised as an art project, the City of Presidents project has given Rapid City something "unique and distinctive" no other city in the nation has, Davis said.

"People are always looking for things that are truly unique," she said.

Skip Andrews, a tourist from Jerome, Idaho, said the only reason he and his group of four came to the downtown area was to visit the president statues.

"It's pretty impressive," Andrews said as one of his group posed for a picture with the statue of John Quincy Adams at the corner of Seventh and Main streets. "It's definitely an attraction. It's a very ambitious project, from the financial point of view, to put it all together."

Brown said he thought the statues added personality to the downtown.

"I think it's a great community showcase," he said.