Wreaths for veterans need help tying bows

The all-volunteer Sgt. Mac Foundation is looking for help with its annual holiday laying of wreaths on veterans' graves.

Foundation board member Stan Clark, in Gettysburg, Pa., needs assistance Friday to tie red bows on wreaths. The wreaths will be laid later at Gettysburg National Cemetery and Saturday at Quantico National Cemetery in Virginia.

Clark said volunteers to lay wreaths are plentiful, but more are needed to tie on bows.

In four years since its inception, the grass-roots foundation has expanded from laying about 500 wreaths at Quantico National Cemetery to last year's achievement of 2,100 there, and 500 at Gettysburg National Cemetery. The eventual goal is to have all veterans' graves nationwide marked with a wreath, founder John McColley said.

"If they served, we care," he said.

He and his wife, Susan, formerly of Gettysburg, started the foundation in 2006 after their son, Marine Sgt. Jonathan Eric McColley, was killed in a helicopter crash in the Horn of Africa. He was buried at Quantico in 2006.

At Christmastime that year, Susan McColley was placing a wreath on her son's grave each week, and she put the previous week's wreath on another veteran's grave. She decided that all the graves should have a wreath.

Giant Food in Gettysburg helped supply the McColleys with about 500 wreaths that first year, and visitors at Quantico on Christmas Day volunteered to help place them.

At the end of the day, the national wreath project had been born, John McColley said.

This year, the foundation is prepared to place as many wreaths as last year. The foundation hopes to add a cemetery a year, he said.

Now living in North Carolina, McColley said he is working on funding for wreaths at the New Bern National Cemetery in New Bern, N.C. The foundation depends on contributions.

Gifts of hundreds of dollars or a single $7 check are significant, McColley said. The approximate cost of a wreath is $7.50, Clark said.

Wreaths have to be ordered in August, although contributions for the project typically do not come in until later in the year.

The organization also tends to veterans in other ways, helping those in financial need and mailing care packages to those serving, McColley said.

"I don't want to be known as the wreath foundation," he said.

The foundation's mission statement states: "Honoring Eric's memory was the driving force behind the creation of the Sgt. Mac Foundation, but its programs are much larger than any one individual. É [O]ur mission is simple, serving and remembering those that have served this country with honor."

"The loss of my son inspires me to keep it up," McColley said. "I can't stress enough for everyone to stop and think."

Clark can be reached at 717-337-1728. The foundation website is www.sgtmac.org.

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