SUFFOLK, Va. - Weeks after calling on the community to help with a fundraising shortfall, a Suffolk nonprofit was able to lay a wreath at each grave of a veterans cemetery this weekend.
Saturday marked Wreaths Across America day, where volunteers lay wreaths at veterans cemeteries across the country to honor and remember their service and sacrifice around the holidays.
The day included several local efforts, including the laying of 13,000 wreaths at Albert G. Horton Memorial Veterans Cemetery in Suffolk.
The Horton Wreath Society buys the wreaths and organizes volunteers each year, but fundraising gets more difficult as the number of graves at the cemetery grows.
President of the society, Mike Yarbrough, says the cost this year was around $100,000. His organization announced only this week that it had finally reached its goal thanks to the community stepping in.
“We had the Hampton Roads people, corporations, individual donors. We made our mark and we were able to purchase them all," Yarbrough told News 3 after a ceremony before Saturday's wreath-laying. "We even have a little residual to start saving up for next year. There will probably be another thousand or so burials, so there will probably be another thousand wreaths next year.”
The ceremony honored veterans of each branch of service and those who were prisoners of war or missing in action.
Familiar faces, including the commander of Naval Station Norfolk, Capt. Janet Days, and Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia), spoke.
