Effort to place 12,000 wreaths gathering momentum

Philip Merry was on his way Tuesday (Dec. 1) to meet about the placement of 12,000 wreaths at the Fort Smith National Cemetery when a person walked up and gave him $25 to support the effort.

“That will take care of five veterans,” Merry said, meaning that it takes about $5 to place a wreath on each of the headstones in the cemetery.

Merry, president of Bowen, Miclette, Britt & Merry of Arkansas, said the $25 is just one of hundreds of examples of the grassroots support emerging for the “Christmas Honors” effort pushed by the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce. According to the chamber, the effort is designed “to help honor the servicemen and women of our community, who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.”

On Dec. 12, family, friends and volunteers are expected to place one wreath on each of the 12,000 headstones in the Fort Smith National Cemetery in downtown Fort Smith.

Between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m., on Dec. 12, families of service members will place a wreath on their family member’s gravesite. Friends and volunteers are welcome from 9:30 a.m. until the final wreath is placed. At 11 a.m. a short ceremony is planned to honor the various branches of the military. In addition, there will be a candlelight vigil at 5:30 p.m., Dec. 14 for friends, family and our community. (Link here for the initial report on the event.)

The grassroots support “is going on and it will take this thing off the charts,” Merry said Tuesday during the meeting with Jayne Hughes, Sheri Neely, Noah Steffy, Lea Taylor and Whitney Yoder.

So far, the support has pushed fundraising over the $37,000 mark in just a few short days. The effort, part of the Education & Quality of Place division of the chamber, seeks to raise at least $60,000 to cover the upfront costs of buying the wreaths. Merry said area corporations and their employees are starting to step up, also.

Steffy, who operates the paddleboat business at Carol Ann Cross Park, and Merry praised Kelly Clark, manager of the Walmart Supercenter on Zero Street in Fort Smith, for cutting the costs from $130,000 to about $60,000. Walmart also is contributing more than 100 volunteers to unload and prep the 1,008 boxes of wreaths.

Neely, a district manager for Kelly Services, is coordinating volunteers for the effort. Between 250-300 volunteers have been pledged, including about 50 from the 188th Fighter Wing in Fort Smith, about 70 advanced placement students from Ramsey Junior High School, and students from Greenwood High School. Neely expects the volunteer number to rise.

“We’re getting calls every hour it seems (from people wanting to volunteer),” she said Tuesday.

Volunteers are critical. It takes about 1 minute for a wreath to be prepped for transport to the cemetery. With 12,000 wreaths, that’s about 200 hours of work.

The event organizers also are flooded with calls from people with compelling reasons to volunteer. Lea Taylor, president of What If Creative, heard from Jessica. Jessica, who has family members buried in the cemetery, will turn 30 on Dec. 12 and intends to bring her family to help.

“She said she couldn’t think of better way to spend her 30th birthday,” Taylor explained.

Volunteers are greatly needed and appreciated to help with wreath assembly and placement. For more information or if you would like to participate in this rewarding effort, please contact:
General Information – Philip Merry, 926-0939
Donation Information – Whitney Yoder, 783-3111
Volunteer Information – Sheri Neely, 650-5781

Also, donations to the Christmas Honors project can be made at any branch of Arvest Bank or First National Bank of Fort Smith.