December 7, 2006 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Since 1864 more than 300,000 veterans have been buried beneath simple white headstones at Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia.
To honor their service, volunteers have gathered at the cemetery each December since 1992 to place 5,000 wreaths on graves.
The volunteers are recruited by the Maine State Society, a Falls Church, Va., group that has provided a forum for people from Maine who now live mostly in the Washington area to promote their home state and socialize with one another.
A Maine businessman, Morrill Worcester, came up with the idea and the resources for the Arlington Cemetery event.
As a 12-year-old in 1962, Mr. Worcester won a contest to visit Washington, where he was struck by the vastness of the cemetery’s rows of neatly tended graves. Three decades later, Mr. Worcester, who never served in the armed forces, decided to donate the wreaths to make Americans aware of soldiers’ vital role in securing freedom for Americans.
“We are trying to make that a real thing for children,” says Mr. Worcester, who owns a wreath company in Harrington, Me., that bears his name. “It’s in every history book, but I don’t think people have thought about it that much.”
Each year the wreaths, which Mr. Worcester says would cost about $50,000 to buy at retail price, adorn a different section of the cemetery and are placed on the graves of veterans regardless of their home state. The society says the wreaths are nondenominational symbols.
Blue Bird Ranch, a Jonesboro, Me., company that provides trucking and other services, donates free transportation each year to get the wreaths to the cemetery.
Spurred by the many letters of support he has received for the wreath-laying project and to honor its 15th year, Mr. Worcester, who also gives 1,500 wreaths to Togus National Cemetery, a veterans’ cemetery in Maine, plans to expand the effort this month by donating six wreaths apiece to veterans’ cemeteries around the country.
