We seem able to hear our better angels more clearly at this time of year.
Helping others is increasingly becoming a national passion in an age of loud, self-serving discourse. New giving traditions have sprung up in just a generation. Giving Tuesday is an example, joining older traditions like the Red Stocking Fund on the Island, now in its 81st season.
Many of these established ways of caring and giving began with a small idea and a few people. The Red Stocking idea bubbled up at the end of the Depression era 81 years ago, when Islanders Addie Crist and Irene Flanders sewed six red stockings and asked their friends to fill them for kids in needy families. Red Stocking has grown more than 500 percent here since 1938.
Next week, American Legion Post 257 will participate in “Wreaths Across America,” for likely the 13th or 14th year on the Island. Accompanied by children from the Tisbury School and Principal John Custer, Legion Post 257 volunteers will lay seven ceremonial wreaths at Oak Grove Cemetery on Friday, Dec. 13, at 10 am.
“Specially made wreaths for the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, and POW/MIA will be placed on the Avenue of Flags directory after the ceremony,” Jo Ann Murphy, Post 257 commander, said this week.
Allowing that this memorial tradition is her favorite, Murphy said the tradition was designed to “Remember — Honor — and Teach: Remember the fallen, honor those who served, and teach our children the value of freedom.” Murphy said the Island observes the day on Friday “so the kids can attend and learn. The formal day is Saturday. We tried that one year, and lost the presence of kids.”
Murphy and her post were relatively early adopters of a program that began as an idea by two people in rural Maine in 1992. Morrill and Karen Worcester run the Worcester Wreath Co. in Harrington, Maine.
According to the company story on his website, worcesterwreath.com, Morrill Worcester was looking at his wreaths that year, and thought of an early childhood visit to the nation’s capital and Arlington National Cemetery that he’d won as a paperboy for the Bangor Daily News, and which founded a memory that had always stayed with him. He boxed up seven wreaths with bows, and sent them off to to Arlington to honor each of the nation’s armed services and POW/MIAs.
Other individuals and organizations stepped up. James Prout, owner of local trucking company Blue Bird Ranch, provided transportation to Virginia. Volunteers from the local American Legion and VFW Posts gathered with members of the community to decorate each wreath with traditional red hand-tied bows. Members of the Maine State Society of Washington, D.C., helped to organize the wreath laying, which included a special ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
The annual tribute went on quietly for several years, until 2005, when a photo of the stones at Arlington, adorned with wreaths and covered in snow, circulated around the Internet. Suddenly, the project received national attention. Thousands of requests poured in from all over the country from people wanting to help with Arlington, to emulate the Arlington project at their national and state cemeteries, or simply to share their stories and thank Morrill Worcester for honoring our nation’s heroes.
Unable to donate thousands of wreaths to each state, Worcester began sending seven wreaths to every state, one for each branch of the military, and for POW/MIAs. In 2006, with the help of the Civil Air Patrol and other civic organizations, simultaneous wreath-laying ceremonies were held at more than 150 locations around the country. The Patriot Guard Riders volunteered as escort for the wreaths going to Arlington. This began the annual “Veterans Honor Parade” that travels the East Coast in early December.
“The annual trip to Arlington and the groups of volunteers eager to participate in Worcester’s simple wreath-laying event grew each year until it became clear the desire to remember and honor our country’s fallen heroes was bigger than Arlington, and bigger than this one company,” the website notes.
In 2007, the Worcester family, along with veterans, and other groups and individuals who had helped with their annual veterans wreath ceremony in Arlington, formed Wreaths Across America, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, to continue and expand this effort, and support other groups around the country who wanted to do the same. The mission of the group is simple:
In 2014, Wreaths Across America and its national network of more than 60,000 volunteers laid over 700,000 memorial wreaths at 1,000 locations in the U.S. and beyond, including ceremonies at the Pearl Harbor Memorial, as well as Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, and the sites of the Sept. 11 tragedies. The project included help from 2,047 fundraising groups, corporate contributions, and donations of trucking, shipping, and thousands of helping hands. The organization’s goal of covering Arlington National Cemetery was met in 2014 with the placement of 226,525 wreaths.
The 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.
On Saturday, Dec. 14, 2019, at 8:30 am, 28 years later, volunteers will lay 253,000 veterans’ wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery, one for every gravestone.
What do we learn from Morrill Worcester’s idea? Well, we certainly learn that when an idea’s time has come, nothing will stop it. A family business in a population-1,000 Downeast Maine town developed an idea now in use around the world. They didn’t plan it that way, but they’ve also done well by doing good, and that concept has fledged a viral element in the business world. For example, the Bombas Co. has given away 25 million pairs of socks to the homeless — and grew a successful business over the past six years — after all the venture capital wise guys passed on investing in their crackpot idea. Imagine that.
And while you’re at it, imagine what would happen if this time of year happened all year long.