The Ledger News Article

I am happy to say we have had another article written about the ceremony in Canton. Below is a copy of the article.

Fallen soldiers honored with wreaths, special ceremony

By Carolyn Mathews
carolynmathews@ledgernews.com

Veterans buried at the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton will be honored in a special ceremony at noon Dec. 15, when Christmas wreaths will be laid at their graves in a symbolic holiday remembrance of their fight for American freedom.

The commemoration at the Canton veteran’s cemetery will include a fly-over by the Air Force National Guard and will be attended by local elected officials. The public is invited to attend.

The ceremony will be one of 230 ceremonies held at the exact same time, at state and national cemeteries and veterans monuments across the country, where the Worcester Wreath Company, the Civil Air Patrol and other civic groups have raised funds to place holiday wreaths on soldiers’ graves. The fly-over will include the ceremony being held at the Marietta National Cemetery.

“We’re trying to encourage awareness to honor the fallen military,” said Evanthe (Sam) Papastathis, an organizer of the event. “They are gone at the holidays, but they are not forgotten.”

Papastathis said her involvement in the effort began because she has a loved one buried at the Canton cemetery.

“He just got back from four tours in Iraq and died in a car accident,” she said of her sweetheart, an Air National Guard major. “I started it for one person I loved, but while doing this project, I realized I was doing it for all of them, to honor them and their families.”

Papastathis, an Atlanta resident who works as an executive assistant in a Buckhead firm and runs a flight school at Peachtree-DeKalb Airport, single-handedly raised enough money this year to have wreaths placed on 500 of the 1,350 graves at the Georgia National Cemetery.

“I did that just by word-of-mouth, with friends and friends-of -friends,” she said. “Next year, I’d like to get some corporate sponsorships, and put one on all the graves.”

The Wreaths Across America project began more than 15 years ago when Worcester Wreath Company (a for-profit commercial business from Harrington, Maine) began a tradition of placing wreaths on the headstones of the nation’s fallen heroes at Arlington National Cemetery.

Since that time, Worcester Wreath has donated 75,000 wreaths, which were placed by volunteers each December.
All the wreath-laying ceremonies are held at the same time, except for ceremonies on Dec. 10, when 51 wreaths will be laid at each state capitol and at the nation’s capitol.

Papastathis said she thinks the ceremony is an important lesson in freedom.

“It teaches our children that these people gave their all for freedoms we enjoy every day,” she said.

The Georgia National Cemetery, in Cherokee County, is one of the newest national cemeteries.

The 775-acre cemetery lies between Cartersville and Canton, near the Etowah River, offering views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and Lake Allatoona. The entire site was donated by the late philanthropist, land developer and World War II veteran Scott Hudgens.

According to its Web site, www.georgianationalcemetery.org, the cemetery will serve more than 400,000 honorably discharged veterans that live within 75 miles of the site.

The cemetery is located on Ga. 20, seven miles west of Canton, at 2025 Mount Carmel Church Lane.

To donate to the wreath-laying effort, visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org.