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National nonprofit Wreaths Across America (WAA) is producing a free, virtual “Giving in July” concert on Facebook to replace its annual “Stem to Stone Rally in the Valley” weekend event in Maine.
The concert will air live on the WAA Facebook page beginning at 5 p.m. MDT Sunday, July 19.
It will include patriotic musical guests honoring WAA’s mission to “Remember, Honor and Teach.”
The event will include a special message from Operation Red Wing lone survivor, United States Navy SEAL (ret.) Marcus Luttrell and his wife, Melanie, from their home in Texas.
Performers will include Craig Morgan, Chris Roberts, Lindsay Lawler, Mark Wills, The Bellamy Brothers, The Don Campbell Band, Darryl Worley and Six-String Soldiers.
The event also will feature WAA sponsorship groups – like-minded civic and youth groups, veteran-service organizations and other nonprofits – around the country who partner with WAA to raise funds and awareness in their own communities to support the WAA mission.
Throughout the live event, viewers will have the opportunity to support local groups and participating cemeteries in their hometowns. The groups are part of a program whereby $5 of each $15 wreath sponsorship received goes back to the local group for programs in their own community. Through this national program, WAA has given back more than $12 million in local contributions during the last 11 years.
Also, during this virtual concert there will be appearances from local volunteers across the country who are giving back in their own communities through their participation in the WAA program.
All donations received from the live event will be used to sponsor fresh, balsam veterans’ wreaths to be placed by volunteers on National Wreaths Across America Day, Saturday, Dec. 19, at more than 2,100 participating locations nationwide.
WAA was founded to continue and expand the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery begun by Maine businessman Morrill Worcester in 1992.
For more information or to sponsor a wreath, visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org. Also visit www.facebook.com/FortBayardNationalCemeteryWAA.
Local groups head up Wreaths Across America for national cemetery at Fort Bayard
Mary Cowan, who lives in Silver City, heads up the Wreaths Across America (WAA) for the Fort Bayard National Cemetery, a little more than 100 miles northwest of Las Cruces. Her late son was a United States Army AH-64 Apache gunship pilot, said Gadsden Chapter Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) President Don Williams of Las Cruces.
“I am honored to be able to say SAR has continually supported WAA at Fort Bayard,” Williams said. “Last year, the Doña Ana Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, under the leadership of Linda Bartlett, contributed to the WAA effort at Fort Bayard.”
Williams said current national SAR President John T. Manning “has made WAA his primary project.”
Williams said Fort Bayard has more than 5,800 internments.
Contact Mary Cowan at cowanm.waa@gmail.com, Linda Bartlett at lndbartlett@gmail.com or Don Williams at cobracaptain@earthlink.net. Visit www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/ftbayard.asp.
