Ceremony scheduled to honor local veterans through Wreaths Across America campaign
Captain David Shaw, squadron commander of the Greene County Civil Air Patrol, first heard about Wreaths Across America about nine years ago.
That was when someone at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies in Cecil Township, Washington County, contacted him to see if he would be willing to volunteer with its project to place Christmas wreaths on the graves of the cemetery’s veterans.
Captain Shaw was involved in a World War II living history event at Fort Indiantown Gap in Eastern Pennsylvania, and the contact at the cemetery thought he might be a good candidate to assist in carrying out its wreath program. Since then, he has participated in 60 to 70 percent of the annual wreath laying projects at the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies and once helped remove the wreaths at the end of January at the cemetery at Fort Indiantown Gap.
About four or five months ago, he decided to initiate a similar project for the veterans’ graves in Greenmount Cemetery in Waynesburg, where an estimated 200 veterans are buried.
“We advertised for sponsors on Facebook, and the squadron held fundraisers outside the Giant Eagle and Wal-Mart in Waynesburg,” he said. “Word of mouth helped get even more sponsors.”
At the moment, the squadron raised enough funds to place 40 wreaths at $15 apiece on veterans’ graves at Greenmount Cemetery. The campaign for more funding ends today (Dec. 1), and the public is invited to attend a special Wreaths Across America ceremony at noon on Saturday, Dec. 16 at the Greene County Courthouse in Waynesburg. The ceremony will include a speaker, the playing of “Taps,” a color guard presentation and possibly a vocalist and aerial flyover.
Similar programs in cemeteries across the U.S. are scheduled at noon on Dec. 16 with the reading of a script written by Wreaths Across America for the event. Following the ceremony in Waynesburg, the public is invited to help place the wreaths on the veterans’ graves at Greenmount.
A similar Wreaths Across America campaign has been organized for the last seven years by the Carmichaels Women’s Civic Club, an organization that has placed wreaths on the graves of veterans buried in Laurel Point Cemetery in Carmichaels.
The Civic Club, along with the American Legion Post 400 and the Carmichaels Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3491, will stage a special wreath laying ceremony also on Saturday, Dec. 16, starting at 11:30 a.m. The event will take place at Laurel Point Cemetery, just of Market Street in Carmichaels, and the public is invited.
The ceremony will take place simultaneously with others across the United States, including the event at the courthouse.
Wreaths Across America’s founder, Morrill Worcester, owner of the Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Maine, was inspired by a visit as a 12-year-old to Arlington National Cemetery in the nation’s capital.
The experience followed Worcester throughout his life and successful business career, reminding him that his good fortune was due, in large part, to the values of this nation and the veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
In 1992, Worcester Wreath found itself with a surplus of wreaths near the end of the holiday season. Remembering his boyhood experience at Arlington, Worcester realized he had an opportunity to honor our country’s veterans.
With the help of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, arrangements were made for the wreaths to be placed at Arlington in one of the older sections of the cemetery, a section which had been receiving fewer visitors with each passing year.
In 2007, the Worcester family, along with veterans and other groups and individuals who had helped with their annual Christmas wreath ceremony in Arlington, formed Wreaths Across America, a non-profit 501c3 organization, to continue and expand the effort and support other groups around the country who wanted to do the same.
In Greene County, Captain Shaw hopes to have his squadron organize a wreath laying program each year and eventually expand the project by adding a cemetery or two each subsequent year. His ultimate goal is to have a wreath placed on the grave of every veteran buried in a Greene County cemetery.
“Next year, I hope to get more volunteers involved in placing the wreaths on the graves and more organizations on board to help support the project,” said Captain Shaw. “I’ve already talked to the Waynesburg VFW, who will be represented at the ceremony on Dec. 16.”
“I feel that it’s important to honor and remember our nation’s veterans,” he added. “As Wreaths Across America likes to say, ‘A person dies twice: once when they take their final breath, and later, the last time their name is spoken.’ When we lay the wreaths, we speak the veteran’s name.”
For more information on the Greene County Wreaths Across America project, call Capt. David Shaw at 724-627-8545.