Christmas Honors finishes first year with successful collection effort
by January 10, 2010 8:28 pm 79 views
The volunteers again showed up on a cold Sunday morning (Jan. 10) to wrap up Christmas Honors by helping to collect, repackage and load 12,000 wreaths.
Hundreds of families, veterans and volunteers also showed up early Saturday Dec. 12 morning to help place the 12,000 wreaths at the headstones in the Fort Smith National Cemetery.
Placing the wreaths is part of the “Christmas Honors” project of the Education & Quality of Place division of 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.”
Philip Merry, president of Bowen, Miclette, Britt & Merry of Arkansas, spearheaded the effort. The core team supporting Merry was Lea Taylor, Sheri Neely, Noah Steffy, Whitney Yoder, Bryan Merry, Claude Legris, Ashley Ellis and Kelly Clark. While there was no official headcount, most estimates placed at more than 1,000 the number of volunteers who helped prepare the wreaths, ship them to the cemetery and place them at each headstone.
More than $62,000 has been raised — the initial goal was $60,000 — to fund what is now expected to be an annual event.
“This community will never let you down,” Merry said Sunday morning about the numbers of volunteers who braved temperatures below 20 degrees to help collect the wreaths.
