Annual Wreaths for Heroes event on tap Saturday Volunteers needed for annual event to honor heroes

Annual Wreaths for Heroes event on tap Saturday

New wreaths will adorn the 1,587 gravestones at Jefferson City National Cemetery this holiday season.

Wreaths for Heroes purchased new wreaths after it donated the gently used wreaths it has displayed for the past dozen years to area parishes and some schools, who will use them for local commemorations.

Volunteers are to deliver and place the new wreaths on the National Cemetery graves early Saturday morning. A brief ceremony will follow placement. To volunteer, contact Don Hentges at 573-619-9880.

About a dozen volunteers are needed at 7:20 a.m. Saturday to unbox the wreaths at the warehouse, 1402 Missouri Blvd., and place them in pickups. Volunteers with pickups are asked to arrive at the warehouse at 8 a.m. to receive the wreaths. Loaded pickups will gather near Madison and Dunklin streets to create a motorcade to the cemetery, which is located at 1024 E. McCarty St.

The procession is to begin at about 8:40 a.m. and arrive at the cemetery at about 8:45 a.m.

Several more dozen volunteers will unload the wreaths from the pickups, stack them alongside the drive, then place them on gravestones.

Hawthorn Memorial Gardens, 4205 Horner Road, annually celebrates Wreaths Across America Day. It will do so again at 11 a.m. Dec. 18.

Wreaths Across America is celebrated to remember the fallen, honor those who serve and teach children the value of freedom. More than 2,500 cemeteries, including Arlington National Cemetery, conduct wreath-laying ceremonies.

The event began more than 20 years ago, when Worcester Wreath Company in Maine started a tradition of donating and placing wreaths on the headstones of fallen heroes at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Wreaths will be placed in all 50 states and at 24 U.S. national cemeteries on foreign soil this year.

Visit wreathsacrossamerica .org/pages/14928/Overview/ ?relatedId=18864 to volunteer to lay wreaths at the cemetery or learn how to sponsor wreaths.