Venue Change for Windsor's Wreaths Across America Ceremony

WINDSOR, CT — Due to expected major snow, Saturday's “Wreaths Across America Day” ceremony in Windsor will be moved inside to Windsor Town Hall’s Council Chambers at 275 Broad Street.

The public is invited to the noon ceremony that that is part of the “National Wreaths Across America Day” effort, when ceremonies also will be held across the nation to honor U.S. veterans.

The Windsor ceremony, originally scheduled for the Windsor Veterans Memorial Cemetery on East Street at noon, will be hosted by Carmon Community Funeral Homes of Windsor and Windsor’s American Legion Post #59.

“It is very important to honor the lives and service of our nation’s veterans with this ceremony and we don’t want the snow to stop that from happening,” explains Matthew Carmon, a third-generation funeral director at Carmon Community Funeral Homes, a family-owned firm that has been serving families for 70 years in North Central Connecticut with nine funeral homes and its own on-site Mount Laurel Crematory. “People are invited to come and pay respects in a safe indoor location, with a ceremony that will feature a color guard, and readings by local clergy and veterans."

Carmon explains that all of the wreaths will be placed by volunteers at Windsor’s Veterans Memorial Cemetery later that day or Sunday. He notes that people who ordered a wreath to be placed on a grave of a loved one have the option of picking up the wreaths at the ceremony and placing it themselves, if desired. Otherwise, they will be placed for them by local Boy Scouts.

The annual ceremony at Windsor Veterans Memorial Cemetery was started seven years ago when the Wreaths Across America program reached out to HAVOCT. They were joined by Carmon Community Funeral Homes and Windsor American Legion Post #59, and community groups including local Boy Scout troops, and the event has grown larger every year since.

Wreaths Across America is a national nonprofit organization founded in 2007 to continue and expand the annual wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery started more than 20 years ago by Maine businessman Morrill Worcester. In 1992, Worcester and his company, Worcester Wreath Company of Harrington, Me., donated the first wreaths, numbering just 5,000, and all were placed at the cemetery. Wreaths Across America has since expanded to include more than 1,000 local groups in all 50 states, representing more than 1,100 locations including cemeteries, military memorials, our nation’s cemetery at Arlington, national veterans’ cemeteries on foreign soil, and ceremonies at sea.

For more information about the December 17th Windsor Veterans Memorial Cemetery’s Wreaths Across America ceremony, call 860-688-2200.

Written by Laura Soll

Photo credit: Tim Jensen