Wreaths Across America - VOLUNTEER!

photo by James Varhegyi

On Saturday, December 13, 2008, Morrill Worcester, owner of Worcester Wreath Company, Harrington, Maine, will again donate over 10,000 Maine balsam fir holiday wreaths to be placed on graves at the Arlington National Cemetery.

This will be the 17th consecutive year that Mr. Worcester has donated wreaths at Arlington. Cemetery officials have assigned us Section 12 within the Cemetery for these wreaths to be placed. For those of you who helped last year, Section 12 is just to the left of the Section we did last year. There will be a welcome and briefing of all volunteers at 8:30am on that Saturday at the McClellan Arch (same place as last year). We will start placing wreaths at approximately 9:00am. There will a special wreath ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Noontime which we hope the volunteers will stay to attend. A full schedule of events is listed on http://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/ under the Locations tab then click on Arlington. Click here for a complete list of participating locations.

Last December we had approximately 3,000 volunteers helping in this tribute to our fallen American Heroes. Based on the calls and e-mails I have received, I expect the number of volunteers to be even larger this year. Due to the large number of volunteers expected, and the limited parking spaces available, we encourage everyone who can to please use the Metro Rail system (Blue Line) to get to Arlington National Cemetery. Parking will be available in the Cemetery’s Employee and Administrative Parking lots and along specific roads located to the East of Eisenhower Drive (King Drive, Leahy Drive, McClellan Drive and Halsey Drive). There will be signs posted to direct you to these locations. To help with the traffic bottleneck problems encountered last year, the Cemetery has agreed to open a Service Entrance Gate located at the South end of the Cemetery near the intersection of South Joyce Street and Columbia Pike. If you must drive, please check out this entrance as an alternate to the main entrance to the Cemetery. I look forward to seeing you all there. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Please remember those who will not be home to share in this holiday with their families.

Wayne Hanson
Maine State Society of Washington DC
Arlington Wreath Project Coordinator