Jeannette couple raising money to adorn veterans' graves through Wreaths Across America

March wasn’t exactly the best time to start a fundraiser.

But Frank and Linda Drury of Jeannette decided to forge ahead with raising about $9,000 to purchase 600 wreaths through Wreaths Across America for veterans who are buried at Jeannette Memorial Park. The couple knows honoring veterans is important, no matter what else is going on in the world, even a pandemic.

“We’re just doing it to honor the vets and to do something positive for the town,” Linda Drury said. “This is something everybody can do.”

“We don’t want anybody to not get a wreath that deserves one,” said veteran Frank Drury.

National nonprofit Wreaths Across America supplies Maine balsam wreaths to volunteer groups, which then place the greenery on veterans’ graves across the country every December. More than 700,000 wreaths were laid at 1,000 locations in 2014, according to the nonprofit’s website.

Those locations in recent years have included two cemeteries in North Huntingdon and one each in Irwin and Salem.

The Drurys hope the Penn Township cemetery will join the ranks. They are about halfway to their fundraising goal with a little more than a month left. Both were stunned by the support of local businesses despite restrictions borne of the coronavirus pandemic that have eaten into revenues.

“The businesses of Jeannette have been awesome,” Frank Drury said. “It’s awesome, especially in this time.”

CMS East, operator of the memorial park, is honored that the couple selected Jeannette Memorial Park, according to office manager Tina Wilhelm.

“It’s something that we’re hoping to grow every year,” she said.

Linda Drury said she is “very hopeful” they will reach their goal by Oct. 31. Each wreath costs $15. Any money left over will go toward next year’s wreaths.

As long as the fundraising goal is met, the wreaths will be laid at the Altman Road cemetery at noon on Dec. 19. The Jeannette Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8240 honor guard, of which Frank Drury is a member, will participate in a ceremony at the cemetery that day.

Volunteers are needed to help unload the wreaths in the days before the event and place them at grave sites. Frank Drury said any family members of veterans buried at Jeannette Memorial Park can request to lay a wreath at the gravestone of their loved one.

But they don’t want to stop with the 600 veterans there.

“Our intention is that, hopefully, in the years to come that we can add” other cemeteries around the Jeannette area, Linda Drury said.