Wesson News
The American Legion and Socks for Heroes (SFH), the Wesson-based veterans support charity, are again asking individual citizens, businesses and not-for-profit organization around town to support area wreath-laying ceremonies to honor deceased veterans next month at the cemeteries where they have been laid to rest and associated venues.
The organizations which will lead the ceremonies are asking to donations to buy the wreaths at a cost of $17 each. Drane Prine Unit #79 of the the American Legion at P.O. Box, Wesson, MS 39191, and Socks of Heroes at 1032 Cotton Street, Wesson, MS, are accepting the donation
Wesson-based SFH organizes Christmas season wreath-laying on veterans' graves throughout the area, including those at Wesson Cemetery, among 2,100 nationwide, where ceremonies sponsored by Wreaths Across America honor men and women who sacrificed their lives in the armed forces.
WAA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded to continue and expand the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery begun by Maine businessman Morrill Worcester in 1992.
"Our mission is to remember the fallen, honor those who serve and to teach our children the value of freedom," SOH’s Cathy Stroud says. "We take time out to recognize the people that made the ultimate sacrifice."
WAA started in 1992 when Worcester Wreath in Maine found itself with a surplus of wreaths nearing the end of the holiday season. Remembering a moving boyhood experience at Arlington National Cemetery, owner Morrill Worcester seized on it as an opportunity to honor the country’s veterans. With the aid of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, he arranged for the wreaths to be placed at Arlington in one of the older sections of the cemetery that had been receiving fewer visitors with each passing year. Other individuals and organizations stepped up to help, including a local trucking company that transported the wreaths to Virginia, volunteers from local American Legion and VFW Posts and members of the Maine State Society of Washington, D.C. who helped make wreaths and organized laying them.
The event continued quietly each year until 2005, when a photo of gravestones at Arlington, adorned with wreaths and covered in snow, circulated around the internet. The event drew national attention and expanded to thousands of other locations where the Arlington ceremonies were emulated. Nearly two million veteran wreaths are placed on headstones at participating cemeteries around the country.
The Arlington wreath-laying is still held annually, on the second or third Saturday of December. WAA's annual pilgrimage from Harrington, Maine, to Arlington National Cemetery has become known as the world’s largest veterans’ parade, stopping at schools, monuments, veterans’ homes and communities all along the way to remind people how important it is to remember, honor and teach about the contributions of those who served their country in war time.
For information, contact Wesson American Legion’s Kim W at 601-942-3319 or SOH’s Stroud at 601-695-4140.
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