wreaths across america

Press Release:

On Dec. 16, the Wreaths Across America Day Ceremony will be held at the Western New York National Cemetery in Pembroke, on Route 77 and Indian Falls Road. The event begins at 12 p.m. with a short ceremony that includes the Presentation of Colors, National Anthem, and Ceremonial Laying of Wreaths by each military branch. Following the ceremony, family members who have loved ones buried there will be able to lay wreaths on the headstones first. 

This year, there are over 1,600 headstones, with a goal to have a wreath placed on each one. If we sell more than 1,600, we are credited with wreaths for next year. The WNY National Cemetery is growing at an extraordinary rate, last year there were just 750 headstones.

The Wreaths Across Ceremony is run by the WNY National Cemetery Memorial Council. The Council is a non-profit that runs many of the events at the National Cemetery such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies. The council also supports the honor guard and installs and maintains the Avenue of Flags. $5 from the sale of each wreath is given to the Memorial Council if purchased through the Memorial Council’s link on Wreaths Across America.

The Pembroke Veterans Outreach Club, which is a student organization at the Pembroke Jr./Sr High School is selling the wreaths on behalf of the Memorial Council. This is the third year the club has done so. Last year the club was responsible for selling or collecting donations for almost 500 wreaths! 

Veterans Outreach Club members are selling them throughout the community and you can also send a check made out to the Pembroke Veterans Outreach Club for the number of wreaths you would like to purchase and the club will do the rest of the ordering for you. 

The Veterans Outreach Club and Pembroke Schools also play a major role in helping the council facilitate the Wreaths Across America Day event. Beyond selling the wreaths the kids set up, stage the wreaths, pass them out, direct participants to the proper rows, clean up, and help break down the event. 

They later collect the wreaths at the end of the season. It is truly a community-wide event. Last year there were well over a hundred and fifty attendees helping to lay wreaths on our veterans' headstones. Local fire departments help with parking, sheriff's work traffic control, and the Pembroke bus garage shuttles attendees to different sections of the cemetery.

The Veterans Outreach Club is led by Junior Club President Lilly Senko. Lilly has been an active member since 7th grade. She had led many of our club activities including, dinners with the Eagle Star House, collection drives, patriotic activities with the elementary school, an opening ceremony for Pembroke Veterans Wall of Honor, helping run the Purple Heart ceremony, and helping to coordinate our club's recent trip to Alaska. Lilly is also a talented artist who designed our Alaska trip t-shirts. Lilly will play a major role in organizing this year's Wreaths Across America Day events.

We would truly appreciate your support for both honoring our local veterans during the holiday season and helping support the good work of the WNY Memorial Council. Your purchase of a wreath through the Memorial Council will do both! Wreaths are $17 and can be purchased through:

• The Council link at www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/ny0368p 
• Checks, made out to the Pembroke Veterans Outreach Club, mailed to - Pembroke Jr./Sr. High, P.O. BOX 308, Corfu, NY 14036.

We hope to see you at Wreath Across America at 12 p.m. on Dec. 16. 

The men and women interred at the WNY National Cemetery were honored on Saturday as part of a national effort, Wreaths Across America.

Family members and community members placed a wreath on each headstone in the cemetery.

Wreaths were sold by members of the Veterans Outreach Club at Pembroke Junior-Senior High School, led by teacher Matthew Moscato.

Genesee County's veterans' services officer, Bill Joyce, was the keynote speaker during an opening service that included placing a wreath for each branch of the military by either a veteran or an active member of the Armed Forces, a 21-gun salute and the playing of taps.

Joyce recalled a speaker he had heard previously at another ceremony honoring veterans.  That speaker noted that when we are at a headstone of a dead service member, we tend to look at the birth date and the death date but rarely stop to consider the space between those dates -- the dash.  It is the dash that matters most.

"How did they live their lives? How did they live, in other words, the dash? We know how these individuals interred here at the Western New York National Cemetery lived part of their lives, serving in every military service. They served this great nation honorably," Joyce said. 

Joyce called the service a day of "remembrance and reflection," noting that he was honored as a retired Army veteran to be the day's featured speaker.

Families of service members buried in the cemetery were given several minutes to place wreaths at their loved one's headstones. Then community members were given numbered wreaths to place at the remaining headstones.

They were instructed to salute after placing the wreath if they were an active service member or a veteran, or place their hand over their heart if not, and say the service member's name.

"When we read the names on the headstones today, it symbolizes acknowledging the sacrifices that service members made on behalf of the country," Joyce said.

Photos by Howard Owens.

Bill Joyce

Matthew Moscato

Members of Notre Dame's Varsity Basketball team volunteered to place wreaths. Photo submitted by Susan MacPherson Woodruff

As Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Giving Tuesday are all looming ahead for hungry shoppers, there’s also an initiative to honor local veterans worthy of your investment, Matthew Moscato says.

Wreaths Across America is a project to ensure that those veterans who have served and died are commemorated with a red-ribbon accented pine wreath during a yearly ceremony every December. This year that event is set for noon Dec. 17 at the Western New York National Cemetery, 1254 Indian Falls Road, Corfu.

And while Wreaths Across America is, as it implies, a national effort, Moscato’s Veterans Outreach Club at Pembroke Junior-Senior High School is selling the wreaths locally to also benefit the WNY National Cemetery Memorial Council, a non-profit entity that runs many of the events at the National Cemetery.

“We have 40 to 50 students, it’s the largest club at the school,” Moscato said to The Batavian. “We do a ton of stuff; our kids really wanted to promote this. The Memorial Council is in charge, and our kids play a role in helping with that. They’ve gone to the community collecting donations for the wreaths.”

They have so far collected enough for 450 wreaths, with a total need of about 1,300 this year, he said. Students volunteer to participate during the annual ceremony by helping visitors get around the large cemetery grounds, passing out wreaths and being on hand to assist with other duties. They also participate in a detail one week out of each year to take down, inspect and raise flags for the revered Avenue of Flags, he said.

“They’ve been very enthusiastic about it” he said. “They’re very integrally involved.”

For every $15 wreath sold, $5 goes to the Council to offset expenses related to the cemetery, such as maintaining U.S. flags for the Avenue of Flags and providing uniforms for the Honor Guard.

Moscato, a teacher at the school and this year’s Wreaths Across America coordinator, began the club a few years ago, and it has been growing in size and scope ever since. The group recently created a Wall of Honor for all Pembroke graduates who went into the military. An entire hallway has been dedicated for that project, and more than 230 plaques — made at the school — hang on the walls with those students’ names on them, he said.

“We held an opening ceremony that hundreds attended and many flew in from around the country to be there,” he said. “The Pembroke Veterans Outreach Club is a community service club that works to ‘honor our local veterans.’

“Our club is a pure community service club, we make no money from it,” he said. “We want to make sure there are 100 percent enough wreaths for the veterans. The kids are really excited. Being in the school district that the cemetery is in, it plays an important role … and the kids are definitely doing their part.”

Pembroke Veterans Outreach Club is selling wreaths for this event, with the goal of having a wreath placed on every headstone in the cemetery for the holiday season, Moscato said. He is also on the WNY National Cemetery Council. The Outreach Club plays a major role in hosting this public event, which includes a short ceremony with a couple of speakers, followed by community members laying wreaths on the headstones of graves.

“This is the same ceremony that takes place in Arlington,” he said. “I’m sure you have seen the iconic pictures of the wreaths on the graves there. This is the same ceremony right here in Western New York.”

Go HERE to sponsor one or more wreaths, or send cash or checks to: Veterans Outreach Club, Pembroke Jr-Sr High School, P.O. Box 308, Corfu, NY, 14036. If more wreaths are purchased than are needed this year, the money will go toward next year's gravestones and ceremony, Moscato said. Deadline for ordering is Nov. 29.

Submitted photos of Pembroke students helping out at the WNY National Cemetery during last year's ceremony.

Video: Last year's ceremony.

Several years of volunteer time, energy and collaboration will come together next month for a wreath-laying ceremony at Western New York National Cemetery in Corfu.

The cemetery was officially opened in December 2020, and now for the first time, it will play host to a Wreaths Across America ceremony featuring Keynote Speaker and Medal of Honor recipient David Bellavia, the laying of wreaths for at least 700 fallen soldiers, and an Honor Guard, Public Affairs Chairman Patrick Welch said.

“This is the first year, and we feel we’re doing fairly well,” he said to The Batavian on behalf of the cemetery’s council. “We’re at 530 wreaths purchased … from everywhere in Western New York. We’re looking to sell around another 200 by the close of business on Monday.”

Yes, the clock is ticking to buy a wreath for a veteran’s grave. The deadline for orders is Monday, Nov. 29. People have the option to lay the wreath themselves during the event or someone else will take care of it. This link ensures that wreaths purchased are designated for Western New York: www.wreathsacrossAmerica.org/NY0368P

The Western New York National Cemetery Council, classified as a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit,  will receive $5 from each wreath purchased. Proceeds will go toward necessary items not provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration due to a lack of resources or legal restrictions, Welch said.

He gave two examples of such necessary purchases. The VA provided a construction trailer to house Honor Guardsmen in between funeral services. Only thing was that it was empty, so the Council had to buy furniture, a refrigerator and/or coffee pot so the Honor Guard could keep warm and relax for a while before heading out again. Another need was for some type of vehicle to transport the guardsmen — who are typically 60 to 80 years old — around the cemetery to designated gravesites.

“So we had to go out and raise money to get golf carts so that we can transport the honor guard around the cemetery through the services,” Welch said. “Those are just a couple of examples.”

Wreaths are $15 apiece. If more wreaths are purchased than needed, the credit will go toward a purchase for next year’s ceremony and burials, he said. The ceremony is open to the public, and Welch recommends that visitors show up early, as seating is limited. Visitors may want to bring a lawn chair to ensure seating for the event.

There is to be a multi-phase development of the cemetery, which will include a columbarium to house cremations on-site. That project and other additions are set to begin in 2022, said Welch, a retired U.S. Marine from Amherst. Although he has been working on this effort for several years, it isn't about him, he said. 

“It’s about the cemetery and those that served this country,” he said. 

Wreaths Across America started as a simple gesture of thanks, organizers said in a news release. The effort has grown into a national movement of dedicated volunteers and communities coming together to "not only remember the nation’s fallen and honor their service but to teach the next generation about the sacrifices made for us to live freely," it stated. This year, there will be more than 2,500 participating locations placing wreaths on National Wreaths Across America Day – Saturday, Dec. 18, 2021 – with more than two million volunteers coming together.

“We are forever grateful for the thousands of supporters who dedicate their time and effort to fulfilling our mission on a local level,” said Karen Worcester, executive director of Wreaths Across America. “These individuals and their communities know the value of remembering the fallen, honoring those who currently serve, and teaching the next generation about the sacrifices made for our freedom every day, and without their continued support, Wreaths Across America would not exist.”  

In May 2014, the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration purchased 132-acres in Corfu for $625,000, and acquired two additional parcels of land in 2018. Western New York National Cemetery is a 269-acre Department of Veteran Affairs national cemetery located at 1254 Indian Falls Rd. and Route 77, Corfu.

The council sought permission to include an Avenue of Flags and was granted permission as only one of three cemeteries to have one. The flags hold special significance as having been draped over veterans' caskets and donated for this purpose. 

According to the WNY cemetery website, it serves the needs of more than 98,000 veterans, spouses, and eligible children within a 75-mile radius of Batavia. For more information about the cemetery, go to:  https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/WesternNewYork.asp#hi

Top photo: The Avenue of Flags, Honor Guard and entrance at Western New York National Cemetery in Corfu. Photos submitted by Patrick Welch