Credit: Patrick Grego
On Thursday, July 11, members of the VFW, American Legion and Pine Plains Volunteer Fire Company gathered at the Back Bar Beer Garden in downtown Pine Plains to celebrate the success of their recent fundraiser.
Consisting of a letter and a late June dinner at the firehouse, it raised a total of $12,000, which will be used to purchase approximately 450 bronze-plated, aluminum grave markers that double as flag holders. Each one will mark the grave of a deceased member of the armed services buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Pine Plains and at the Gallatin Reformed Church Cemetery.
“That’s what Pine Plains does, it honors the veterans, which it should do,” said Brian Walsh, Town Supervisor and chief of the Pine Plains Volunteer Fire Department.
Each marker, purchased from the East Greenbush, N.Y., company Gettysburg Flag Works, cost approximately $27. “We assumed it would take three years to raise that type of money,” said Carol Hart, a retired budget analyst who has worked in various New York state agencies for 37 years. “Instead it only took three months.”
Hart plans to install the markers as soon as they are ordered and it gets a little cooler outside. “We’re just waiting for the 100 degree weather to cool down a little bit,” she said. “But they’ll definitely be in the ground before December.”
Hart now moves on to her next goal, placing wreaths at the gravesites as a volunteer location coordinator for Wreaths Across America, a non-profit organization founded by Worcester Wreath Company in Harrington, Maine. Worcester Wreath Company sells the wreaths used by Wreaths Across America and benefits greatly from this arrangement, reportedly earning over $30 million annually. Despite concerns raised by this arrangement, Hart said that her experience with the organization has been purely positive.
Every year since 2008, Congress has designated a Saturday in December as National Wreaths Across America Day. This year it will take place on Dec. 14, when more than 2 million wreaths will be placed across military cemeteries nationwide.
Hart is planning another dinner to help fund the purchase of wreaths on Nov. 9. “We collect funds all year long, with an annual fundraiser in the fall, and funds remain in an account until we need to buy more wreaths,” she said. “Any money that comes in after the deadline to get the wreaths here before the ceremony on Dec. 14, that money gets used for wreaths for the next year.” The deadline for purchasing wreaths for this year’s ceremony is Nov. 25.
There are an estimated 530 veterans’ graves in Pine Plains and an additional 100 in Gallatin. How many will be decorated by wreaths in December? “We’ll cover the whole thing,” said Hart.