In 1992, Morrill Worcester, the owner of the Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington, a tiny town in Downeast Maine, had a problem. As Christmas was approaching, he realized he had a surplus of wreaths. Way too many wreaths.
He didn’t want them to simply dry out. But what could he do with them?
When he was a 12-year-old paperboy, he had won a trip to Washington, D.C. and visited Arlington National Cemetery. Seeing the thousands and thousands of thousands of graves and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier left an indelible impression on him. So he suddenly had an idea – he would take the wreaths to Arlington and place them on the headstones in an older part of the cemetery that didn’t attract very many visitors.
It would be a daunting task. Harrington is located in sparsely populated Washington County, known as “Sunrise County” because it’s the easternmost point in the 48 contiguous states. It is 621 miles away from Arlington, and it wasn’t as if Worcester could put hundreds of wreaths in the back of his pickup truck – he would need a big truck. And plain wreaths, without accompanying red ribbons, wouldn’t be much of a tribute. Finally, would the cemetery allow him to place his wreaths on the hallowed grounds?
With the assistance of his congressperson, Olympia Snow, he was granted permission by Arlington. James Prout, the owner of a local trucking company, generously provided transportation from Harrington to Arlington. Volunteers from the local American Legion and VFW Posts decorated the wreaths 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.
Worcester’s seemingly impossible dream was realized.
He continued his mission every year, well known by Washington County residents. However, folks in the rest of the country were unaware of his efforts. Until 2005 that is, when a photo of the stones at Arlington adorned with wreaths and covered in snow went viral on the internet. Suddenly thousands of people requested information about how they could help in purchasing and laying wreaths at Arlington. The movement spread, with people beginning to place wreaths honoring veterans at their local national and state cemeteries each December.
In 2007, the Worcester family, with the support of veterans organizations and a variety of other groups and individuals who had helped their annual wreath ceremony in Arlington, launched Wreaths Across America, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that would expand the effort of placing wreaths on the graves of veterans on the second or third Saturday in December. Just one year later there were over 300 wreath-laying ceremonies in every state, Puerto Rico, and 24 overseas cemeteries. Over 100,000 wreaths were placed on veterans’ graves with some 60,000 volunteers participating. On Dec. 13, 2008 the U.S. Congress unanimously voted to declare it “Wreaths Across America Day.”
Let’s flash to 2025. Some 3.1 million sponsored veterans’ wreaths were placed on the headstones of the nation’s service members at 5,598 participating locations. About a third of the people who placed those wreaths were children, a perfect fit for the organization’s credo – “Remember, Honor, and Teach.”
That’s something Betty Garrison of Manahawkin realizes.
She’s been the area’s Wreaths Across America representative for eight years. This year she is hoping she and her volunteers will be able to place 560 wreaths in “3½” cemeteries.
The three are the old Methodist Meeting House Burial Grounds at Beach and Division Street in Manahawkin, the old Manahawkin Baptist Church Cemetery at 120 North Main St. (Route 9), and the West Creek Cemetery at Willets Avenue and Jones Street in Eagleswood Township. The “half cemetery” is the small Greenwood Cemetery located at 200 South Main St. (Route 9) in the Cedar Run neighborhood of Stafford Township.
Garrison and her volunteers will be gathering behind the Stafford Township Town Hall at noon on Saturday, Dec. 19 as they prepare to place wreaths on veterans’ graves.
If you want to sponsor a wreath(s) in the Manahawkin area, visit wreathsacrossamerica/NJ0156. It will cost you just $17 per wreath. You can even dedicate a wreath in honor of a specific veteran.
Don’t forget the first word of Wreaths Across America’s credo – “Remember.” As Pierre Claeyssens, a devoted and renowned U.S. veterans advocate who died in 2003, said, “To be killed in war is not the worst that can happen. To be lost is not the worst thing that can happen. To be forgotten is the worst.”
