x
  1. Home
  2.  News
  3.  Local News

DAR brings Wreaths Across American to county

| 23 Dec 2013 | 01:43
    A wreath is laid at a grave by the local chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution.
    A wreath is laid at a grave by the local chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution.
    DAR member Allyn Perry lays a wreath at a grave as partnered with the group's affiliation with Wreaths Across America.
    DAR member Allyn Perry lays a wreath at a grave as partnered with the group's affiliation with Wreaths Across America.

Wantage — While the winter storm may have canceled its Dec. 15 ceremony, the Chinkchewunska Chapter of the Daughters’ of the American Revolution (DAR) fulfilled its mission and placed 90 wreaths on the graves of veterans in several Sussex County cemeteries on Wednesday, Dec. 18.

The event marked the first time the local DAR group partnered with the Wreaths Across America campaign to honor lost veterans. Stops were made at the Frankford Plains Cemetery, Hamburg Baptist Church Burying Ground, Sparta Presbyterian Methodist Cemetery and North Hardyston Cemetery. A ceremony also was originally planned for the Deckertown Union and Papakating Cemetery in Wantage, but had to be canceled as the snow in the burial ground was impassable.

Chinkchewunska Chapter Registrar Ashley Ziccardi said the idea to connect with the Wreaths Across America campaign was suggested by a friend who helps with other local cemetery projects.

"It seemed like a really appropriate thing for a DAR group to do,” she said.

Normally, Ziccardi added, the DAR would not decorate non-Revolutionary war veterans’ graves as many of the newer veterans’ families already make the effort to visit lost loved ones, but support from the wreath-sale fundraiser was so great there were plenty to go around. Additional proceeds from the fundraiser will be put towards the replacement of lost or damaged grave markers for Revolutionary War Veterans.

While the inaugural event didn’t go quite as planned, Ziccardi said the group “will continue doing it in some form or another.” Now that the cemeteries are listed on the national Wreaths Across America registry — including Wantage’s Clove Cemetery, Coe Smith Cemetery and VanFleet Cemetery, which were missed due to weather — the organization of future events will be much easier, she added.

Wreaths Across America
Wreaths Across America is a national nonprofit organization founded in 2007 to continue and expand the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, begun in 1992.

WAA’s mission — Remember, Honor, Teach — is carried out in part by coordinating wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington, as well as veterans’ cemeteries and other locations in all 50 states and beyond.

The organization has since expanded to include more than 1,000 local fundraising groups in all 50 states representing more than 800 cemeteries, military memorials and other locations, along with our nation’s cemetery at Arlington.

In 2008, and each year since, Congress has issued a proclamation officially recognizing “Wreaths Across America Day” each December. This year’s was held on Saturday, Dec. 14.

For more information, visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org.