By GLYNIS HART
[email protected]
ACWORTH – A dedicated group of community members plans to transform the veterans’ memorial by the town hall. On Veterans Day, the Acworth Memorial Park Committee sponsored a lunch for veterans and their families, one of a series of events and fundraising activities undertaken by the group.
Organizers said over 70 people showed up. Participants celebrated with songs for every service branch, and every veteran at the gathering was individually thanked.
“It was a fantastic turnout. We’re very patriotic,” said Jennifer Bland, whose husband and other family members are veterans. “We just want our veterans to know how grateful we are for their service.”
The idea began over a year ago, when celebrants gathered for the 250th birthday of Acworth noticed the memorial by the town hall could use a little sprucing up.
“We were at the sestercentennial,” remembered Bland. “There was a group of veterans there, and we thought the memorial we have could be a little bit better.”
Since that initial gathering, the Acworth Memorial Park Committee has been busy. They cleaned up the current memorial and put in new plantings. On Memorial Day they staged a cleanup of town property and a pancake breakfast to benefit the memorial fund. In June and July they met and found an architectural landscape designer to recreate the memorial.
Currently, the Acworth memorial includes a plaque dedicated to Acworth residents who served in World War I and has several lists to remember veterans of the first Gulf War; the victims of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 and Acworth service members in general. One hundred and ten Acworth men, however, served in the Revolutionary War, and others in World War II. Union Army records don’t always register the hometown of enlistees, as many traveled to population centers to join up.
“We want it to reflect Acworth,” said Bland, who is co-chair of the Acworth Memorial Park Committee. The goal of the project is to beautify the area around the town hall flagpole and add memorials with the names of all those who served in wars while they were residents of Acworth, according to Bland and Committee Chairman Gregg Thibodeau.
“Those who gave so much for our town and this nation deserve to be remembered forever,” Thibodeau said.
ldeally, the group would also like to get support from local families who had veterans in the family, and from current-day veterans. Their fundraising goal for the new improved memorial park is around $80,000.
For more information, email [email protected], find the AMP Committee on Facebook, or call (860) 338-3227 or (860) 601-2223. Donations are always welcome, care of: Friends of the Meeting House, Acworth Memorial Park Project, P.O. Box 2011, Acworth, NH 03601.
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