MEMORIAL DAY ASSOCIATION OF GREATER CLEVELAND

VOLUNTEER PAGE

Last Updated May 28, 2008

A MESSAGE FOR THOSE VOLUNTEERS WHO SIGNED UP

We thank you for standing by and making yourself available
to help decorate with flags our veterans' gravesites.
Due to challenges with the 120,000 burial record database
we were not able to generate assignments except for a few.

We will be contacting you to offer volunteer opportunities
in verifying the database at cemeteries. Our goal is to start
this process by early Fall of 2008.

We have MDAOGC Volunteer 2006 buttons and program that we will issue
to those who signed up in 2006 as mementos of their support

AGAIN WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND PATIENCE

HOME

Recruitment Efforts

TEACHERS, SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS, PTA, PARENTS

Post Memorial Day Activities
Contact us to have your students participate
Flags, flier and letters will be available
only if requested prior to Memorial Day
by May 22 or after July 30

Voice your opinion - help is needed to make this happen

Look under Post Memorial Day Activities

EQUIPMENT AVAILABILITY

PAST CEMETERY COORDINATORS
and
VETERAN ORGANIZATION LEADERS

(1) Prods/Stakes to make holes in the ground
for the flags are going to be available at
flag distribution points upon request and for
pre-arrenged pickup contact us for instructions

(2) Planning and Reconciliation of Data
We still need input from coordinators
Please forward copies of your information
such as lists and maps, and if you have
the information as a wordprocessor or database
file, we would appreciate a copy of the file itself

Memorial Day Volunteers and Donations Needed

There are nearly 120,000 veterans that are buried in Cuyahoga County. The Memorial Day Association of Greater Cleveland, in honor of our veterans' service to our country and their fellow citizens, is looking to organize 1000 plus volunteers (Citizens' Honor Brigade) to help decorate, for Memorial Day, each and everyone of the individual veterans' gravesites within Cuyahoga County with a flag starting the week of May 22nd. Please visit www.mdaogc.org to sign up to volunteer and/or donate to the effort.

TO DONATE: please make checks payable to MDAOGC and mail to MDAOGC P.O. Box 32700 Cleveland, Ohio 44132-0700

Please read below for more details on this effort and visit our website www.mdaogc.org for updates.

There are three stages to this effort.

MEMORIAL DAY ACTIVITIES

First, from initial pool of volunteers, we will create squads (teams) of 5-7 individuals. We encourage volunteers to form their own squads. Each squad is composed of a Squad Leader who will obtain the Cemetery and gravesites assignment from our organization (we will try honor requests, first come basis) and be responsible to know the locations to be decorated. That person will be joined by: 3-4 individuals who will be responsible for cleaning/clearing the headstones; an individual who will prepare the hole for the flag and an individual who will insert the flag. The team can rotate with those duties. We urge those wanting to volunteer to organize their own squads, this will facilitate organizing common times and dates, identifying sharing tasks, as well as car pooling.

POST MEMORIAL DAY ACTIVITIES

Project is being developed and support is needed to implement. We have one obstacle - The Cuyahoga County Veterans Service Commission (CCVSC) has issued a letter restricting the retrieval and reuse after Memorial Day, of Flags placed at Veterans gravesites – To remove this wasteful restriction and if you agree with our intended reissuing of these flags as described below to continue the “Legacy Of Care”, please write to the CCVSC and to the Cuyahoga County Commissioners objecting to not being allowed to continue honoring our veterans and our flag. Please send a copy of the letter to the

Memorial Day Association of Greater Cleveland

P.O. Box 32700

Cleveland, OH 44132-0700

Mel Baher, Frank Pocci, Bob Potts, Daniel T. Weist, Thomas T.K. Zung

Cuyahoga County Veterans Service Commission

1849 Prospect Ave. Room 200

Cleveland, OH 44115

Timothy F. Hagan, Peter Lawson Jones, Jimmy Dimora

Cuyahoga County Commissioners

1219 Ontario St.

Cleveland, OH 44113

Honorable and Patriotic reuse of Flags from gravesites

Second, if the volunteer pool is large enough we invite them to participate in an extension of this effort. Our goal is to retrieve the flags after Memorial Day. Then print on a flier the information on a veteran that was honored by one of the flags, on the flier also print the Flag Etiquette. The volunteers and veterans, in celebration of Flag Day, would then take the Flag and a flier and hand it out to school children in Cuyahoga County schools before they let out.

Third, along with the flag and flier, the children would also receive a suggested letter to be sent to our current soldiers serving throughout the world and particularly the servicemen and servicewomen in harms way. The letter will state that the school child has received a flag as well as a Veteran's information at which one of the flags stood (include the Veteran's information in the letter), plus indicate that they also got the Flag Etiquette. The children will also be encouraged to express thanks to our current soldiers for their service and the sacrifice of their families, and let the servicemen and servicewomen know that as those Veterans before them were not forgotten, their sacrifice and service and that of their comrades in arms, will not be forgotten or words to that effect.

This will assure a "LEGACY OF CARE", instilling in our youth the respect that our flag and our veterans deserve and the understanding that the troops serving our country need our support.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT

Ray Saikus, President

Memorial Day Association of Greater Cleveland

P.O. Box 32700

Cleveland, Ohio 44132-0700

Tel. (216) 514-7001

rrs@mdaogc.org